Madam, - I write to suggest an idea that has been in my head for some time now - a taxpayers' ombudsman.
Madam, - I write to suggest an idea that has been in my head for some time now - a taxpayers' ombudsman.
Over the past few years taxpayers have been perplexed, appalled, amazed and disillusioned at the bills that have arrived at their doorsteps, some of them correctly addressed and others only addressed to us because we are the last port of call, i.e. the sitting ducks.
The bills could be for things that we barely knew we had ordered - such as legal bills, massive cost overruns, hamfisted negotiations.
I am aware that this is a democracy and we have elected an executive to deal with these matters for us, but government is a two-way street and we are entitled to be kept informed in a detailed way so the average taxpayer can make a value judgment at any time. An uninformed public is bad for democracy.
The taxpayers' ombudsman would do just this. S/he would question massive and unjustifiable accounts. S/he would set out to inform the public about public finances - the intriguing riddle of where the money goes could be as interesting as a detective novel. S/he would employ all modern means of media communication to create, over a period of, say, 12 months, an informed taxpayer and an aware public. The mere fact of the ombudsman's existence would deter people from making wild claims in the first place.
We have just come through a period of wealth creation and expansion but also a period of decision-making paralysis. It took perhaps 14 years to get the LUAS going - and even then, it is a mere shadow of its initial aspirations. The benefit of an ombudsman representing the ultimate payee would be to challenge this loss-making lethargy which masquerades as concerned democracy.
Decisions generally do not get any better just because you spend, say, 14 years and five ministers thinking about them.
The greater benefit would be that, having built up a real appreciation of what money can buy, we could then start to come to real value judgments on what to invest and develop in our own society. My feeling is that the Irish people would show themselves to be much more capable, concerned and canny than we imagine. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL QUILLIGAN, Bloomfield Avenue, Portobello, Dublin 8.