Also, and I may be wrong here, but is there a well of misery and anxiety under your oh-so-efficient, bright-eyed exterior? Why don’t you reveal your real fears and despair? Might be cathartic?

Sarah, you mentioned the entrepreneurs as role models. I think this is a huge part of the problem. Today young people are after something cool or exciting and they are presented with stereotypes to which they are invited to aspire – the high dealing of business, the glitz of entertainment, the frenzy of finance. The cult of personality is today’s religion: who would be a scientist if you think you can be Bono? Or who wants to be a priest when you can be a Rogue Trader?

It is true, as Crocodile says, that a certain amount of people make bigger income in business – in finance or certain services. But it is lost on the average 18 year old that the world of business is often mundane and brain dead too. Mismanagement and waste are not the preserve of the civil service. Private entreprise is not the nirvana of open management, opportunity, flexibility, and free thinking that we are led to believe. Many of the people I know in private industry work in horrid, repetitive, stifling environments,hate their jobs and have no respect for managers who far from enabling the best in people, cause people to close down and just tip along.

Furthermore, there is the perception that the managers in business are sharp, innovative and brilliant strategists. And that integrity and accountability would shame the public service. I heard a comentator on a radio program recently say about the budget problems in the HSE that if this happened in private business, those responsible would be fired. Here the image is of a ruthlessly efficient business world where any shortfall brings the ultimate workplace punishment – the sack. But this is horseshit. Private companies miss their targets, piss off their customers (ever ring NTL?), and make blunders all the time. Occasionally a head rolls but this is not the norm. We’ve seen shareholder meetings again and again where brazen directors fail to hold management to account and the small shareholders get ignored.
This is not to mention the cronyism in the small, incestusous world of Irish business, where directors are on a million different boards and hop from one company or sector to the other like musical chairs, all the while playing golf with the same buddies from the management class they are supposed to police.

It is true that elements of the public service are crying out for modernisation and the trenchant unions do nothing to help. But the image of an enormous divide between a glitzy, efficient, progressive and open private sector and a lethargic, dull public sector masks the truth. Both have the good and the bad. But all media are private and pro-business and beating the public servants for wasting tax payers money is always such fun.

I am disturbed by the latest twist in the Aer Lingus saga. I could not believe my ears when I heard Noel Dempsey publicly denouncing an assistant secretary on Morning Ireland. Ministers never say – “Actually, I had no hand, act or part in this piece of legislation/policy initiative/job creation/whatever – all the credit should go to my officials”. The downside of taking all the credit, is that you have to take ultimate responsibility when things go wrong and not publicly hang officials out to dry. The man in question has no right of reply and cannot ring Morning Ireland or Joe Duffy to give his side of the story. If civil servants make culpable mistakes, it should be a matter of internal discipline.

I am aware that this whole side show is a red herring to distract attention from the real issues; however, a man’s professional reputation hangs in the balance. It was particularly poor form, even for a Fianna Fail minister.