My Christmas Wish List

Dear Santa

Living in 2024 Ireland there are a few things I would like to put on my list this year and I hope you are able to deliver on at least a few of these in 2025.

First of all I would appeal to our politicians to hurry up and come up with a stable Government to take us through the many challenges ahead. While on that subject and whilst having no desire to get political I would suggest that considering entering into coalition with parties who have been the subject of damning tribunal reports in the past is a very foreboding precursor to a continuation of the same attitude to failures of Governance and good practice that we have now as a society become almost immune to.

I would ask our politicians to have a serious look at our various regulatory bodies and set out a series of Key Performance Indicators for said regulators as would be the norm for the new year in private industry. If our police force were reporting crimes day after day and failing to hold anyone to account the country would be up in arms. But we find ourselves in a situation where complete disregard for good business practice and Governance is looked upon as , maybe not acceptable, but at best just another day and another scandal. As a society we are failing to hold the perpetrators to account and shame on us for that.

I would ask our politicians to have a serious look at the systems of Governance and internal control in our public sector and the qualifications and experience of the persons tasked with maintaining these. The recent audit of the ambulance service seems to have said that the fixed asset register did not include all of the ambulances in service. This would be laughable if it were not so serious.

I would ask our politicians to hold public bodies (you all know who they are) tasked with capital projects to ensure value for money in every cent spent. We should never again have to deal with debacles such as the bike shelter or office canopy or office printer. The sheer waste and squandering of hard earned taxpayer money is disgraceful. The 3 days of Self-flagellation after which everyone moves on and forgets about it all is so disheartening. Can we please learn from our mistakes and fundamentally reform the way public tenders are placed and assessed . PLEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEEE !!!!!

I would ask our politicians to look to put Ireland at the forefront of environmental reform and progress. As a small nation we have the capacity to be a world leader in this area and enhance and maintain our green reputation. This however means real progress on real projects, not tinkering with additional cycle lanes, bus corridors etc. We could be World leaders in Wind Energy, Alternative Fuels etc etc etc (Oh and please let's stop blaming the poor cows for farting too much ...)

I promise to be good and hope that you can convince others to do the same ...........