Athlone sagas show a country that lacks forward planning

The revelation this week that CCTV cameras are still not operational in Athlone over nine years after they were first announced for the town would be laughable if it was not so serious. Remember that a camera was to have been erected at Bonavalley Bridge where four attacks on young women occurred over the last couple of years. The entire saga is well known at this stage, but suffice it to say, that between the Department of Justice, the Gardai, the Office of Public Works and the EU, there's been one mighty cock-up. Four Ministers for Justice have now been involved in this process since 2000. And still we wait. It's not an isolated example unfortunately. It's this lack of forward planning which has characterised much of our civil service in recent times and which prompt calls for a root and branch reform of the structure. In Ireland, we appear to spend money willy nilly on the preliminary stages of projects without ever knowing whether there is the finance or the inclination to see them come to fruition. Take the long-awaited primary care centre at Clonbrusk for example. Design briefs, development control plans, redesigns and revamps have come and gone. Ten years after it was first mooted, there's still not a sod of turf turned on the site. And now it's less and less likely that funding will be made available to develop the health campus. Imagine the staff hours wasted and the finances blown, not to mention the dispiriting impact on HSE staff motivation caused by this never-ending controversy. Take the will it, won't it saga of the Garrycastle Bridge or the news that the Phase 2B of Mullingar hospital is again on the back burner. The blame for such farcical hold-ups and bureaucratic mayhem lies not with the ordinary public servant who follows the rules and the system. Instead, it lies with the top officials who fail to see the wood from the trees. Maybe they are so deeply embedded within the system that they have blindly accepted its quirks or is it that they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo? Whatever the reason, until we develop a sense of forward planning, and proceed as a civil service in a coherent manner, this country will continue to squander scarce resources at a time when we need them most.