Famous Seamus resigns from cabinet

DMC

Seamus Brennan is stepping down, citing "ill health"

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0506/breaking78.htm

Good ol' Seamus, taking the gloss of Bertie's last day!

But in all seriousness, he has been in poor health recently. Here's to a good recovery.

mike65

He always struck me as one of FFs least odious senior members. Handy for Biffo as well as it gives him more scope to promote someone from the Awffaly mafia.

Mike.

Hogmeister B

mike65 wrote: »

He always struck me as one of FFs least odious senior members. Handy for Biffo as well as it gives him more scope to promote someone from the Awffaly mafia.

Mike.

Less odious maybe, but one of the most incompetent and idiotic individuals ever to hold high public office.

dh0661

mike65 wrote: »

Handy for Biffo as well as it gives him more scope to promote someone from the Awffaly mafia.Mike.

Jumped - before he was pushed ?

Mr.Micro

Brennan was there for the laugh, cos he does not seem to have done much else. I had forgotten he was in the cabinet, just dust him off then he probably wont know the difference.

DMC

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Brennan was there for the laugh,

He'll miss the jammer.

LostinBlanch

On a slightly different note, I heard on Newstalk that there was a lot of money going on Dempsey as next minister of finance! :eek:

WTF??? He has to be one of the most incompetent, ham fisted, shambolic idiots in the cabinet.

If this is true, and I hope it isn't, we're really in for hard times. He'll do to the countries finances what Harney did to Health.

Hogmeister B

LostinBlanch wrote: »

On a slightly different note, I heard on Newstalk that there was a lot of money going on Dempsey as next minister of finance! :eek:

WTF??? He has to be one of the most incompetent, ham fisted, shambolic idiots in the cabinet.

If this is true, and I hope it isn't, we're really in for hard times. He'll do to the countries finances what Harney did to Health.

God help us if that happens. God help us all.

ninty9er

Point at something Dempsey has done that wasn't a good idea. Anything he's put forward has gone arseways becasue of lack of cross-party political will.

He's a solid steady pair of hands, with public service always to the fore.

And before some idiot decries me saying he was going to introduce 3rd level fees. Check the facts. The OECD recommended thta the re-introduction of 3rd level fees be publicly examined.

is_that_so

ninty9er wrote: »

Point at something Dempsey has done that wasn't a good idea. Anything he's put forward has gone arseways becasue of lack of cross-party political will.

He's a solid steady pair of hands, with public service always to the fore.

And before some idiot decries me saying he was going to introduce 3rd level fees. Check the facts. The OECD recommended thta the re-introduction of 3rd level fees be publicly examined.

I am not sure what you call steady pair of hands. He's been around long enough to know what will and won't work politically. The provisional licence gaffe smacked of absolute stupidity and he can hardly blame anyone else for that.

He is also inclined to go on solo runs like the "broadband nation" speech a couple of years back, amongst other things. His performance in Education was disappointing , fees debate notwithstanding. Personally I find him one of the least credible FF ministers and wouldn't let him near a piggy bank.

ninty9er

is_that_so wrote: »

I am not sure what you call steady pair of hands. He's been around long enough to know what will and won't work politically. The provisional licence gaffe smacked of absolute stupidity and he can hardly blame anyone else for that.

He is also inclined to go on solo runs like the "broadband nation" speech a couple of years back, amongst other things. His performance in Education was disappointing , fees debate notwithstanding. Personally I find him one of the least credible FF ministers and wouldn't let him near a piggy bank.

The provisional licence "gaffe" as you call it was one of his better moments, if only Cabinet had stood behind him on it. You know it *just might* be a good idea to start enforcing pre-existing laws.

dresden8

ninty9er wrote: »

Point at something Dempsey has done that wasn't a good idea..

Wasn't Dempsey the one who gave all the oil and gas to Shell? Instead of 50% off the top for the state they agreed to pay tax at 50%.

As far as I know big companies don't pay any tax or else not much at all. Profits are shoved around the world to the lowest tax rate possible. That's how microsoft and other companies declare earnings here and pay 10%.

It will be interesting to see how much money we get back out of this whole shambles.

flogen

LostinBlanch wrote: »

On a slightly different note, I heard on Newstalk that there was a lot of money going on Dempsey as next minister of finance! :eek:

WTF??? He has to be one of the most incompetent, ham fisted, shambolic idiots in the cabinet.

If this is true, and I hope it isn't, we're really in for hard times. He'll do to the countries finances what Harney did to Health.

Well I'm not sure how Dempsey would actually do in Finance, but assuming your assessment of the man were true isn't there scope to suggest that Cowen would be looking for such an incompetent minister in that position?

Sounds a slight bit conspiratorial (or perhaps just Machiavellian) but it's what Gordon Brown seems to have done - basically put a puppet minister into Finance to ensure that he still pulls the strings. If you put someone who knows their own mind you just set yourself up for big rows in cabinet and potentially a major loss of power for Cowen.

And ninty9er; I don't think the provisional licence thing was all that bad in itself - the problem was that they decided to crack the whip before they got the test rates in order first. Cart before the horse, to some degree (and ideally it wouldn't be a big deal to decide to enforce a pre-existing law but ideally the Government wouldn't have let the waiting lists get so out of hand).

nhughes100

Yep the Haughey era is truly over, except for the Flynn in the room.

seamus

With any luck, Cowen will drop Cullen as well. Useless as tits on a bull.

LostinBlanch

ninty9er wrote: »

Point at something Dempsey has done that wasn't a good idea. Anything he's put forward has gone arseways becasue of lack of cross-party political will.

Hmmm electronic voting. He instigated it and then handed it over to that other "safe pair of hands" form the south east. :rolleyes:

ninty9er wrote: »

He's a solid steady pair of hands, with public service always to the fore.

:rolleyes:

ninty9er wrote: »

And before some idiot decries me saying he was going to introduce 3rd level fees. Check the facts. The OECD recommended thta the re-introduction of 3rd level fees be publicly examined.

Well don't you think that the Dept of Finance discusses with OECD the areas they'd like to concentrate on and see ways of raising more revenue? Then hey presto the OECD report comes out with similar recommendations. Then the Dept can point to the report and say we'll the OECD says so and we're just planning on implementing their proposals.

Just in case you think this is too cynical. It's what I was told by a former college classmate who worked with the section of the Dept of Finance looking at different ways of raising new revenue.

LostinBlanch

flogen wrote: »

Well I'm not sure how Dempsey would actually do in Finance, but assuming your assessment of the man were true isn't there scope to suggest that Cowen would be looking for such an incompetent minister in that position?

Sounds a slight bit conspiratorial (or perhaps just Machiavellian) but it's what Gordon Brown seems to have done - basically put a puppet minister into Finance to ensure that he still pulls the strings. If you put someone who knows their own mind you just set yourself up for big rows in cabinet and potentially a major loss of power for Cowen.

Maybe that 's the case but don't forget Dempsey's capacity for solo runs and then leaving others to clear up after him. So he'd nearly need to have someone looking after him all the time.

flogen wrote: »

And ninty9er; I don't think the provisional licence thing was all that bad in itself - the problem was that they decided to crack the whip before they got the test rates in order first. Cart before the horse, to some degree (and ideally it wouldn't be a big deal to decide to enforce a pre-existing law but ideally the Government wouldn't have let the waiting lists get so out of hand).

Again a perfect example of Dempseys acting before thinking.

serfboard

Hogmeister B wrote: »

Less odious maybe, but one of the most incompetent and idiotic individuals ever to hold high public office.

I thought that he was one of our best ministers for transport, specially since he succeeded one of our worst, Mary O'Rourke, and was succeeded by Martin Cullen, another disaster.

In fact, he was doing so well, and his profile was so good that he was shafted/demoted by Bertie in his September 2004 re-shuffle. (See this article http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ministers-new-life-at-end-of-the-roads-133605.html)

The big story was the surprising and somewhat bizarre move of Seamus Brennan from the high-profile Transport ministry to relative isolation in Social and Family Affairs.

About the news, I saw him on the telly lately and he looked terrible, so I'm not surprised to hear his announcement.

DMC wrote: »

Here's to a good recovery.

+1

lostexpectation

so is minister for social affairs (mary hanafins new job)not important i keep hearing, sound v important to me, i guess people say its unimportant cos all the important decisions are made in the finance dept?

i wouldn't trust hanafin with anything to be honest, i bet if she was on the titanic, as it sank, she'd be saying everything is fine and and the lack of lifeboats is not our responsibility, if you don't have one its your fault for bringing one with you in your luggage.

DMC

And now Tom Kitt has announced he will stand down as TD at the next election.

Depending on the illness, were Famous Seamus to stand down too.... Dublin South just got interesting.

The_Minister

I'm sorry that Brennan is sick, by all accounts he is a lovely man, and he was IMO a competant minister, with only a few small fup-ups to his name. I thought that he was an excellent Minister for Transport.

LostinBlanch wrote: »

He'll do to the countries finances what Harney did to Health.

And what did Harney do to Health?

LostinBlanch

The_Minister wrote: »

I'm sorry that Brennan is sick, by all accounts he is a lovely man, and he was IMO a competant minister, with only a few small fup-ups to his name. I thought that he was an excellent Minister for Transport.

I'd agree with you on Brennan, and the previous poster who compared his tenure to O'Rourke and Cullen.

The_Minister wrote: »

And what did Harney do to Health?

Made an already bad situation a whole lot worse. I don't think that most people would say she is an unqualified success after all her years as Health Minister. Now I realise you're a PD loyalist and may have a different view but it's in the minority, and very much so I'll bet.

I tell you what. Why don't you tell me all the good things she's done and let's see if we can't find some common ground?

The_Minister

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Made an already bad situation a whole lot worse. I don't think that most people would say she is an unqualified success after all her years as Health Minister. Now I realise you're a PD loyalist and may have a different view but it's in the minority, and very much so I'll bet.

I tell you what. Why don't you tell me all the good things she's done and let's see if we can't find some common ground?

I'm a PD because I consider myself a classic liberal (you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you), I was not born into the PDs (no-one is), so I am not a loyalist. I do disagree with the PDs on many issues, but normally I think alot of the criticism they get is so OTT, that I end up having to defend them (people calling them a far-right party for example).

I will never say that she is an unqualified success since she bacame Minister for Health in 2004, but I think we all agree that she had a dungpile of a job ahead of her.
Now to defend her. Since we will most likely disagree on what is good and bad, we will have to agree to disagree on many points.
Firstly, the Consultants contract - This took AGES, and it should have been done far sooner, but she got it done, something that few others would have done (FG's health spokesman is Dr. James Reilly former President of the Irish Medical Organisation, which makes him unlikely to have introduced the changes)

Secondly, she is centralising cancer services into "centres of excellence" (I always cringe at the name:)). I think this is excellent for oh so many reasons that have been debated ad nauseum on these boards and others.

Thirdly, she hasn't donee the easy (or popular) thing of lashing money into the Health service, and then running to give it to someone else before it blew up *Cough* Cowen *Cough*

Forthly, she brought in the first hygiene audits of hospitals in the history of the state. First inspection, nearly every hospital failed. Next inspection circa 60% passed. Next again and nearly all passed. She is the first Minister to recognise hygiene as a problem and try to fix it.

Fifthly, she was instrumental in bringing in the National Treatment Purchase fund, cutting waiting times for many operations from years to weeks-months.

Sixthly, the first lung transplants in Ireland started under her. (I think heart transplant too)

Seventhly, established a National Suicide Group, to try and tackle suicide, and do research into the phenomenon.

Eightly, she created a group to focus on traveller health, to try and shorten the gap between their lifespan and that of settled people.

Ninethly, she has expanded Home Care for the elderly to over 5 times what it was, and has massively increased services for old people.

Tenthly, she is FINALLY going to build a new children's hospital. This issue had benn around for years before she came in, and because politicians knew that there was no way to locate it without pissing alot of people off, they dithered and procrastinated, and commissioned report after report.

Eleventhly, she did the first complete overhaul of pharmacy legislation in over 130 years, and no pharmacists educated in other EU countries can work here.

Twelvethly, se expanded the number of nursing home inspections, and expanded their scope.

Thirteenthly, she expanded Breastcheck more than any other Minister.

Look LostinBlanch, I disagree with her on many things (her recent crusade against the pharmacists for one, or letting nurses prescribe), but the points I listed above barely scratch the surface of what she has done. She has done more reforming than any othe Minister of Health in the history of the State, but its a service that employs over 100,000 people, and takes up a huge portion of our GDP. She is doing things, and making lots of improvments, and I cannot think of one person who would do a better job, in the face of the opposition that she has had.
And I disagree with you that she has made the health system worse.
For instance, since 2001, cancer mortality has decreased 15%.
A&E times are better (and the INO recognises the improvements as being substantial).
Breastcheck is now in all regions, and IIRC cervical cancer is about to start.
Nurses are going to be given forensic training so that sexual assault victims will be able to go to any hospital for treatment.
Despite doctors objections, there will be lay members on the new medical council, to prevent things like Dr. Neary reoccuring.
In conjunction with Hanafin, the number of medical places have been doubled.

The_Minister

Haney actually gave a spech in the Dail with some of the facts and figures, so I'll post it up for you LostinBlanch:

Deputy Mary Harney: Those in Cabinet will know that proposals are brought by a Minister to the Government and are either agreed or rejected thereby. When they are agreed, I, as a member of Cabinet with collective responsibility, support, defend and advance them.

Being a general practitioner, Deputy Reilly will know that the health service in Ireland has improved dramatically over the past decade. I have a list of improvements extending to 20 pages. I will not elaborate on them all but will mention just a few. Today 11,000 older people are being supported clinically at home, whereas there was no such support ten years ago. Some 24,000 people with disabilities are in receipt of day services, while almost none of these services was available in the early 1990s. Eight thousand people with disabilities are in care while virtually nobody was ten or more years ago. Four thousand disabled people are in receipt of respite services annually.

The health service has increased the output from its hospitals. I very much welcome the comments of the Taoiseach on outputs and delivery because we sometimes become obsessed with money and resources. As the OECD has shown, we have 3.9 staff per acute hospital bed, which is double the OECD average. The concentration on inputs rather than outcomes has been one of our great failures as a country in terms of our attitude to public services. Today our hospitals are treating nearly 400,000 more people annually than they did a decade ago.

Today, 200,000 more people have medical cards than they did three years ago and a greater number of people than ever before can go to their general practitioner free of charge than in any time since the 1980s, when unemployment was three times higher.


....*intrruption*.....

Deputy Mary Harney: Deputy Kenny stated today that Fine Gael leaders always put the country first. As a doctor, Deputy Reilly will know about cancer survival outcomes and that we now have a cancer registry whereby we can measure survival rates. It is a fact that the survival rate of people treated in the north west for breast cancer is 25% lower than that pertaining to those treated in specialist centres in Dublin. I refer to the last period for which we have results. Anyone who puts the country and patients first cannot but act in the face of this convincing fact. I will not talk about multidisciplinary teams or use complicated language; suffice it to say that when women with breast cancer are treated by a number of different experts in a single place, outcomes improve by 20% to 25%. There are 250 medical publications worldwide that back up that fact. Our reorganisation of cancer services is about outcomes and delivery and nothing else.

Last week in Galway I had the pleasure of meeting a group known as Helping Hands, whose members joined together voluntarily some years ago because their friends had a child with cancer. The mother of the child was in Dublin with that child for almost a whole year. The group, with which I was really impressed, helped out the family and developed into an organisation. The mother of the child told me she was devastated when her child was diagnosed five and a half years ago. She said she and her husband were prepared to sell their house and go anywhere they could to obtain treatment for their child. She also said they did a lot of investigation and discovered there was nowhere better than Crumlin hospital. She said she was so happy their child was treated in that hospital.

When I listen to these debates, I get so upset when Members do not support the inevitable concentration of services where experts can be brought together. With regard to children’s campuses, we are top of the class worldwide because of the way in which we have organised the services. We all have experience of illness among loved ones and we would bring them almost anywhere if we could get them cured. Therefore, when reorganising services, it is not a question of budgets. Our performance has but one driver and that is patient outcomes and patient safety.

A very encouraging report was published recently on MRSA for the third quarter of last year. While it is but one report, it shows a dramatic improvement in our performance. Some years ago we could never have known how we were doing in this regard because we never measured our progress. Hospitals must now report individually and thus we are able to measure progress, set targets and drive improvements in the interest of patient safety.

I could list many examples of where the health services are improving without any additional resources. Let me cite the example of the winner of one of the health innovation awards last week, St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. Without any additional resources, its neurology unit increased its service level twofold. It was seeing 2,500 patients annually and is now seeing nearly 5,000. The doctors are spending twice the time with patients that they used to spend with them. They are doing so because innovative doctors, nurses and managers got together to change the way they were dealing with their patients. Instead of patients having to wait one year to see a neurologist at the hospital, they now only need to wait a matter of weeks.

These are some examples of what the reform agenda is seeking to achieve. We have amalgamated many organisations into the HSE. If any Member tells me that services were better when we had the health boards with their 273 members, I will challenge his facts.

The HSE is not perfect and considerable efforts are being made by the management of the executive and the board - the board includes very dedicated women and men who have agreed to sit on it and give it their everything - to get the organisation right, establish the lines of accountability and ensure we know who is responsible, when they are responsible and who reports to whom. We have never had a change process of this scale in the public or private sector.

Deputy Gilmore’s former party, the Democratic Left, said of Deputy Howlin when he produced his health strategy in May 1994 that he had slavishly given in to the private sector. The words may be different but the same is said of me. If services are put in place, my obligation and that of the Government is to make them available to patients.

Consequently, at present privately funded radiation oncology services in Limerick and Waterford are made available to all patients. Moreover, Deputy Reilly should note there will be access for all patients to any facilities built.


The Taoiseach: Hear, hear.


Deputy Mary Harney: They will not be the exclusive remit of any single group of citizens. The well-off always can deal with their own health. The challenge is to provide a health service that delivers speedy responses to those who need them.

Deputy James Reilly: Deputy Harney has failed that challenge.


Deputy Mary Harney: The National Treatment Purchase Fund recently celebrated the treatment of 100,000 people, 90% of whom were treated in private hospitals in Ireland. Some people from Dublin went to the country for treatment and vice versa. I met and continue to meet such patients and what matters above all else to them is getting the appropriate treatment when they need it. They do not care who put up the money to put in place the facility once it is quality assured and they know they will get better. This is what the patients want.


The Taoiseach: Hear, hear.


Deputy Mary Harney: I emphasise this is the Government’s health policy.


An Ceann Comhairle: The Minister’s time has expired.


Deputy Mary Harney: I am pursuing the Government’s health policy. It was agreed in the programme for Government and any initiatives will be agreed by the Cabinet. Those that are rejected will not proceed while those that receive support will be pursued with enthusiasm.

ninty9er

The_Minister wrote: »

I'm a PD because I consider myself a classic liberal (you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you), I was not born into the PDs (no-one is), so I am not a loyalist. I do disagree with the PDs on many issues, but normally I think alot of the criticism they get is so OTT, that I end up having to defend them (people calling them a far-right party for example).

I will never say that she is an unqualified success since she bacame Minister for Health in 2004, but I think we all agree that she had a dungpile of a job ahead of her.
Now to defend her. Since we will most likely disagree on what is good and bad, we will have to agree to disagree on many points.
Firstly, the Consultants contract - This took AGES, and it should have been done far sooner, but she got it done, something that few others would have done (FG's health spokesman is Dr. James Reilly former President of the Irish Medical Organisation, which makes him unlikely to have introduced the changes)

Secondly, she is centralising cancer services into "centres of excellence" (I always cringe at the name:)). I think this is excellent for oh so many reasons that have been debated ad nauseum on these boards and others.

Thirdly, she hasn't donee the easy (or popular) thing of lashing money into the Health service, and then running to give it to someone else before it blew up *Cough* Cowen *Cough*

Forthly, she brought in the first hygiene audits of hospitals in the history of the state. First inspection, nearly every hospital failed. Next inspection circa 60% passed. Next again and nearly all passed. She is the first Minister to recognise hygiene as a problem and try to fix it.

Fifthly, she was instrumental in bringing in the National Treatment Purchase fund, cutting waiting times for many operations from years to weeks-months.

Sixthly, the first lung transplants in Ireland started under her. (I think heart transplant too)

Seventhly, established a National Suicide Group, to try and tackle suicide, and do research into the phenomenon.

Eightly, she created a group to focus on traveller health, to try and shorten the gap between their lifespan and that of settled people.

Ninethly, she has expanded Home Care for the elderly to over 5 times what it was, and has massively increased services for old people.

Tenthly, she is FINALLY going to build a new children's hospital. This issue had benn around for years before she came in, and because politicians knew that there was no way to locate it without pissing alot of people off, they dithered and procrastinated, and commissioned report after report.

Eleventhly, she did the first complete overhaul of pharmacy legislation in over 130 years, and no pharmacists educated in other EU countries can work here.

Twelvethly, se expanded the number of nursing home inspections, and expanded their scope.

Thirteenthly, she expanded Breastcheck more than any other Minister.

Look LostinBlanch, I disagree with her on many things (her recent crusade against the pharmacists for one, or letting nurses prescribe), but the points I listed above barely scratch the surface of what she has done. She has done more reforming than any othe Minister of Health in the history of the State, but its a service that employs over 100,000 people, and takes up a huge portion of our GDP. She is doing things, and making lots of improvments, and I cannot think of one person who would do a better job, in the face of the opposition that she has had.
And I disagree with you that she has made the health system worse.
For instance, since 2001, cancer mortality has decreased 15%.
A&E times are better (and the INO recognises the improvements as being substantial).
Breastcheck is now in all regions, and IIRC cervical cancer is about to start.
Nurses are going to be given forensic training so that sexual assault victims will be able to go to any hospital for treatment.
Despite doctors objections, there will be lay members on the new medical council, to prevent things like Dr. Neary reoccuring.
In conjunction with Hanafin, the number of medical places have been doubled.

As you are a PD and I'm a Fianna Fáiler, I'll be the Cowen to your Harney and say: hear, hear!!

Hotblack Desiato

The_Minister wrote: »

I thought that he was an excellent Minister for Transport.

Brennan was useless in Transport. He made a series of increasingly incredible promises which he knew, or should have known, had zero chance of actually happening. E.g. he promised that driving test waiting lists would be all but eradicated (years later, even with privatised testers, they're still there) and credit card driving licences (guess what, no sign of them years later) to name but two.

The_Minister

ninty9er wrote: »

As you are a PD and I'm a Fianna Fáiler, I'll be the Cowen to your Harney and say: hear, hear!!

Tee-hee-hee