Madam, - Liam Roche's otherwise powerful plea for ministerial accountability (June 28th) recognises that something is missing but cannot articulate what.
The same deficiency can be detected in such diverse and apparently unconnected instances as the M3/Hill of Tara, the desperate plight of the O'Carolan family and this Government's easy use of the phrase "value for money".
The problem, I suggest, is that we have never defined accountability sufficiently. Not even the institution of an Information Commissioner and Ombudsman has clarified what is more conveniently kept slippery, opaque and infinitely malleable.
Anyone who has attended an annual general meeting of a listed public company knows that accountability comprises three elements: opening the accounts for inspection, explaining what and why, and demonstrating to assembled shareholders that the company is in good hands for the future. Academics call the first "book-keeping" and the second "story-telling".
But they never bother to think that the third element, which I call "stewardship", is also firmly linked with accountability.
If we all could make a binding commitment to each other - that we would ask elected politicians one question only and keep asking it loudly and insistently until it was answered - much in public life would change. The question is "Please explain how, in this particular instance, you have stewarded the precious resource we placed in your hands for safe-keeping?"
The Hill of Tara is a precious resource. So is the potential of the O'Carolans' son. And so is our public money. Start thinking of stewardship. Link it to sick people and old people and education and the grant of political authority to act in our name.
If we could manage that, then we would begin to look like citizens to whom accountability was due. - Yours, etc,
MARTIN KAY, Rawleystown, Lough Gur, Kilmallock, Co Limerick.