Madam, - Three weeks ago I rang a Government Department for simple information. After being put on hold 12 times I requested to speak to a supervisor. I was promptly put on hold again so I decided to put my query in writing. I am still waiting for the reply.
I was told that the person who could help me was either on a call, out of the office, or gone for lunch with Thomas (who Thomas is was never explained); four calls later the person was now on holidays for the week and, no, I couldn't leave a message.
This exercise in civil service bureaucracy made me think of a Communist dictatorship where the only way to get anything done was to slip a bundle of notes into the greasy hand of a smiling civil servant.
Lurking in every corner is the powerful, greedy, anti-productivity and anti-efficiency Mafia that is the Irish trade union movement.
In a country where many of us pay 40 per cent of our income to support the ineffective monolith that our State services has become, one is tempted to move to Cuba; they may be socialists there, but it's sunny, and lefties all over the world claim they have a decent health service. - Yours, etc.,
AUDREY DILLON,
Main Street,
Ballymahon,
Co Longford.