This time last year I was in recovery mode, nursing a broken shoulder after tripping on the street. I was forced out of work on doctors orders for 10 weeks. It resulted in my dealing with the issue of sick pay for the first time in my life. And that in itself became a saga which I would say sums up the root cause of a lot of problems we have in this country.

Without going into laborious detail, there was a snag in the system which required me to contact the department of social protection. I was told by them to contact the Revenue Commission, who in turn told me to contact my employers, who in turn told me to contact the Department of Social Protection and on it went in two full circles before arriving back at the door of the Department for the third time. All along, everybody was honest and helpful in their endeavours to deal with the issue but to me it seemed a simple case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.

It is an example of a systems failure in this country where we have a spider’s web of bodies all crisscrossing and contradicting each other instead of actually working in tandem

There was no joined-up thinking, no data sharing and so a problem which could have been solved by way of one phone call instead dragged on. It is an example of a systems failure in this country where we have a spider’s web of bodies all crisscrossing and contradicting each other instead of actually working in tandem. And so we end up with a debacle such as the HSE awarding a building contract to a company that is being sued by the Department of Education!

We have a health and housing crisis as a result of a system with no forward plans

Also, recently there are examples such as the SEAI retrofit oversubscription, the public services card revelations, not to mention any amount of serious health scandals, where indecision, bureaucratic legislation, communication breakdown, data sharing restriction, incompatibility and counter-intuitive practice leads to a malfunctioning system, which in turn creates chaos.

We have a health and housing crisis as a result of a system with no forward plans. My son begins secondary school this week and earlier this summer the principal pleaded with any parent who may have a change of mind to immediately inform the school as they had a waiting list of 200 pupils. Imagine the stress of that for families?

There are many such examples of disasters waiting to happen when it comes to building thousands of houses but without the requisite basic requirements of schools, roads, hospitals and other essential complimentary public amenities.

We have an inadequate public transport system in Dublin yet any day soon we will be forced out of our cars in the city. Again, here is one political ideology bulling on with its own ideas while not taking into consideration the ripple effect consequences.

I am sure farmers dealing with multiple departments, agencies, inspectors and officials could regale us with similar tales of simple tasks being unnecessarily frustrated by red tape and bureaucracy.

And then there are the politicians who make careers on the back of crises with never a notion of being part of the solution

Could it be we just have too many pen pushers duplicating duties in order to justify their existence which only serves to confuse, clutter and complicate? It would nearly make you long for a totalitarian society!

And then there are the politicians who make careers on the back of crises with never a notion of being part of the solution. Without problems, they’d be left twiddling their thumbs. But fear not. As long as we have the civil service and the various quangos subconsciously working against each other rather than with each other, Liveline will remain the important and popular radio show it is.

Wait, what day is it?

If there is a campaign to return the all-Ireland finals to their original homes of the first and third Sundays in September, please sign me up.