Chambers is deluded if he thinks allowing public servants to take more risks will improve anything

Sir, – It was interesting to read that Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers plans to remove the shackles of risk management that have, apparently, been hampering house building and other infrastructure projects. (“Backing for civil servants taking risks to speed up homes and infrastructure”, Home News, July 7th)

This implies there are multiple risk-identification and mitigation procedures already in place within Government and semi-State bodies, which might come as something of a surprise to anybody who has been paying attention in recent years.

The children’s hospital financial and project management fiasco, the CIÉ train management software fiasco, the Arts Council software fiasco, the Army armoured vehicle fiasco (they are so useless we cannot even give them away, presumably they are not even worth using for target practice), the bike shed and security hut fiascos, the Dáil printer fiasco, the voting machines fiasco; the list of shambolic public procurement and project management disasters goes on and on as far back in history as anybody cares to look. Yet we are to believe all this happened in an environment of rigorous, indeed overbearing, risk management.

If Chambers thinks allowing public servants to take more risks will improve anything about the performance of the public sector, he is wildly deluded. Perhaps instead he could take a lesson from the private sector, where people are routinely held to account for their decisions and performance, and where abject failures frequently result in sanctions, demotions or even dismissals.