Recently a certain political party has tended to use the public service and Civil Service as a vehicle for easy jibes and popular headlines.The Taoiseach has made it abundantly clear that the only thing which would disqualify a person from being appointed as a programme manager to one of his Ministers was being a civil servant. In the coming months his party will realise that its loss is its partners' gain.
Some weeks ago I availed of the opportunity in a newspaper article to refer to the comments made by a former programme manager who served one of my colleagues in Government. I was afraid that the mantra, "it is only programme managers from outside the public service who are of any use and that they run rings around programme managers who are civil servants", was becoming acceptable. Several programme managers who had served the Labour Party thanked me for putting my views on the record. I know the gentleman who made that statement and what he said was absolute nonsense.
The Taoiseach has changed his veiws now that he is in Government. His attitude to public servants may earn him some cheap headlines but it does considerable disservice to good public servants who have served this State well. He has publicly attempted to contrast the honourable actions of Deputy Phil Hogan with the personal problems of an unspecified number of civil servants. Slagging civil servants is a very attractive option for any politician because they cannot reply individually and the politician can always say he was not referring to X or Y but rather to an anonymous person in some obscure Deparment of State.
Most sections of the written media in particular delight in having a go at the Civil Service. There are unfortunate people in the Civil Service with drink problems. Is there any profession some of whose members do not suffer from this social problem? If so I have yet to meet them. I would even go as far as to suggest that the percentage of individuals with drink problems in this House, working for our daily newspapers or in RTE is just as high, if not higher, than in the Civil Service. I recall in the mid-eighties a very colourful Minister for the Public Service, a friend of mine, who was inclined to circle over Shannon on occasions. He made a career out of having a go at public servants and is no longer a Member of the House.
Because of the Taoiseach's recent illness he must have missed Mass last Sunday, but if he had listened to Mass on the radio he would have heard the gospel advising that before one removes the splinter from one's neighbour's eye, one should remove the plank from one's own.
The Civil Service run special programmes for people with drink problems and if the Taoiseach considers them ineffective I can think of nobody in a better place to put them right. Did he ask to have such programmes reviewed before making his comments last week? Perhaps the Taoiseach has had a bad experience with a civil servant who had a drink problem. If so it is unfortunate, but it was wrong of him to make the sweeping, all tarring statement he made last week. He also referred to those people as "duds". I looked up the dictionary for the meaning of that word. It is a noun, meaning a failure, a flop or a washout. As an adjective it means broken, bust, duff, failed, valueless and worthless. The Taoiseach stated, "I know of cases where there are civil servants who cannot do their jobs because they are alcoholics, but in the public service it is impossible to get rid of those duds".
Given that today is Ash Wednesday, perhaps the Taoiseach could do more penance than merely provide us with the type of comment his spokesperson made on his behalf last Monday. I hope this cheap jibing at civil servants of the highest calibre from the most senior member of the Government will cease.
