Roisin Shortall on Marian Finucane

Qualitymark

Today September 29, 2012 11:53 a.m. - wow. She tells it like it is, how the politics of the Department of Health worked. Listen back if you didn't hear it.

So this is what our republic has come to.

rugbyman

i suppose different people hear differently. I found it a bit sad
Even Marian questioned some of her logic. the media have reported that the Labour party big men left her out to dry, if that is so, methinks they(the big men) are right.

regards Rugbyman

Qualitymark

It was sad, all right.

bleary

Whatever side of politics you are on , this is a lesson in how not to manage people and work with them, after months of work on initiatives by a number of people and agreeing a course of action, you get your advisor to call the night before and tell your colleague that you are going a different direction. Failed doctor, failed businessman, failed politician and failed manager sickened by oreilly and his buddys keeping him in power

woodoo

James Reilly wants an american style health system apparently.

n97 mini

Anything would be better than what we have.

Qualitymark

n97 mini wrote: »

Anything would be better than what we have.

Umm http://www.billshrink.com/blog/5596/health-care/

This isn't the radio forum, give us a summary of what she actually said if you want to discuss this here, please

maddragon

Read the thread title and thought it was a disgusting idea.

thebman

n97 mini wrote: »

Anything would be better than what we have.

No it isn't, our health system is ranked higher than the US one I believe.

It just costs too much and needs reforms around the overstaffing and lack of modernisation to speed up administrative work.

Then we could have the same service but it would cost less but there is no political will to do this in Ireland and certainly not by James Reilly.

Qualitymark

bluewolf wrote: »

This isn't the radio forum, give us a summary of what she actually said if you want to discuss this here, please

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/shortall-i-have-serious-concerns-over-reillys-ability-to-run-health-service-3244112.html

Shortall: I have serious concerns over Reilly’s ability to run health service
Roisin Shortall has strongly criticised health minister James Reilly in her first public statement since she resigned as junior health minister on Wednesday.

In an interview on the Marian Finucane Show on RTE Radio 1 this morning, Shortall said she had serious concerns about Reilly’s ability to manage the health service and that she viewed the inclusion of Balbriggan and Swords in the list of primary healthcare centres as stroke politics. “I have no doubt about that,” she said.

“James Reilly is going in a different direction in relation to the health service. It’s much more about a business model than a service that puts patients at its core.”

Defending her decision to vote confidence in James Reilly in the previous week’s no confidence vote, the Dublin North West TD said “I had to make a call. I had serious differences with James Reilly and I had serious concerns about his ability to manage the health service and his ability and interest in implementing reforms.

“I believed he was going in an entirely different direction, down the whole privatisation, American-style route. And I still firmly believe that.

“It came to the confidence vote. My inclination was to vote no but I knew if I did that, it would be a one-day wonder. I’d lose my job and go to the back benches. I really felt that I had a responsibility to set things out, and I did that in my four-minute speech.

“I was hoping that would act as a catalyst for the Labour Party within government generally.”

She was also critical of the Labour Party leadership, saying she resigned from the party because it did not back her.

Shortall said she had a meeting with the party’s leader Eamon Gilmore but “Ultimately he backed James Reilly over me.”

Full interview: http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!type=doPlayThis&detail=%7B%22latest%22%3Atrue%7D&rii=0%3A0%3A70%3A%3A

n97 mini

thebman wrote: »

No it isn't, our health system is ranked higher than the US one I believe.

Any link to back that up?

A family member living in the US was diagnosed with cancer six months before she was due to move home to Ireland. The advice from doctors in Ireland and in the US was that she would get better care in the US.

test4444

Shorthall did nothing to learn about primary care. She wouldn't meet with the irish association of primary care. She didn't even visit woking centres. She did not follow the public private model recommended by all the reports and the HSE. She just went off and did her own socialist thing. The deal she was offering GPs to work in centres was rejected by all GPs because it limited them to 5 year leases with no right of renewal. No GP would give up an established location to move in to an HSE 'efficiently' :mad: run centre to be kicked out in 5 years!

Reilly does Not want a US system he wants it more like Canada.
Reilly added centres which already had been started where GPs had bought in. Also if you look at the centres shorthall picked and remove centres already built or started there are 19 new builds. 18 of these are in Labour constiuencies.

ardmacha

I heard some of this and some discussion later.

What seems to have emerged is that Reilly mucked around with her list of primary care centres. This is awful management at best and stroke politics at worst. She also alluded to an American approach to insurance companies, presumably rather than a UK NHS model. But the FG policies were based on the Netherlands, not the US, and should be evaluated on that basis.
I think there is a fundamental difference of philosophy here, Reilly's "business" approach may genuinely stem from a belief that this is an efficient way to deliver services. Shortall's patient caring approach risks being impossible to afford.

There was also a suggestion of something not going ahead because of a lack of money. Now you can criticise Reilly for a some of the problems that have lead to this budget shortfall, but Shortall also has to realise that there is a funding crisis.

A family member living in the US was diagnosed with cancer six months before she was due to move home to Ireland. The advice from doctors in Ireland and in the US was that she would get better care in the US.

There is no doubt that the best care in the US is better than anywhere in the world, the question is whether you can access it.

Qualitymark

test4444 wrote: »

Shorthall did nothing to learn about primary care.

She wouldn't meet with the irish association of primary care.

She didn't even visit woking centres.

She did not follow the public private model recommended by all the reports and the HSE.

The deal she was offering GPs to work in centres was rejected by all GPs because it limited them to 5 year leases with no right of renewal.

Could you back each of these statements up, by any hopeful chance?

thebman

n97 mini wrote: »

thebman wrote: »

No it isn't, our health system is ranked higher than the US one I believe.

Any link to back that up?

A family member living in the US was diagnosed with cancer six months before she was due to move home to Ireland. The advice from doctors in Ireland and in the US was that she would get better care in the US.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems
www.rte.ie/news/2009/0928/health.html

Depending on the cancer, we might not have the equipment.

What would the doctors advice be if she had no health insurance I wonder.

n97 mini

ardmacha wrote: »

There is no doubt that the best care in the US is better than anywhere in the world, the question is whether you can access it.

She's public sector on a modest salary. She had access to the best she could afford.

Qualitymark

While we're on the friend-of-a-friend line, an acquaintance of mine got the cataracts in one eye done in the US and it cost him $4,000 (on top of his insurance); at the same time, someone I know in France got his eyes done and it cost him €80, as far as I remember - something like that.

Vizzy

n97 mini wrote: »

She's public sector on a modest salary.

Link ?

beeno67

n97 mini wrote: »

ardmacha wrote: »

There is no doubt that the best care in the US is better than anywhere in the world, the question is whether you can access it.

She's public sector on a modest salary. She had access to the best she could afford.

US health care is in general rubbish. It is no where near the standards in Ireland. Yes you can get high quality care but average healthcare is rubbish.

Qualitymark

The question for me is what kind of healthcare we want. How can it be the best we can make it, for everyone.

Trotter

Theres a bigger picture here. We've someone who by all accounts has acted with integrity towards the aims set out in the programme for government. She isnt stupid or well connected because she got the gig in the first place.

We can assume therefore that theres substance in what she's saying. Therefore why has she left and dropped the Labour whip? (I hate the whip system anyway but thats another day's moan)

From my point of view, Gilmore seems to have sided with the gang that will keep him in government, keep him on the inside of the circle and keep him in the life he's accustomed to. He's not going to back Shortall because then it'll be the last time he stands under an Irish flag at the UN and feels all important.

Enda won't drop O'Reilly because he seems to owe him one, or one hundred for his support when they tried to shift Enda out of the good seat.

So regardless of what is right and proper, we have again the situation where a supporting government minority party is blinded by power and the idea that they can 'do some good' in government regardless of the mucky stenched information seeping out of the setup.

This smells like FF and the Greens all over again... and we all know what happened the Greens.

Theres no integrity in Irish politics. The system is designed to weed out the likes of Shortall who pipe up with ideas that don't suit the underlying govern and prosper at all costs agenda of the ruling people in the Dáil. The machine will row in behind those that shafted her and we'll hear them all over the media.

Back benchers will whistle and look elsewhere. They dont want any kind of general election. 100k jobs arent around every corner.

The system is manky and theres no such thing as principles or integrity winning over.

The back benchers and grass roots of Labour should kick up a serious fuss and back her. Will they? Will they ffff....

test4444

Qualitymark wrote: »

Could you back each of these statements up, by any hopeful chance?

About the lease arrangements for GPs.
http://www.imt.ie/news/latest-news/2012/09/hse-charged-with-edifice-complex.html

I have and anyone can contact the aipc at http://www.primarycare.ie/ to verify that the junior minister refussed to meet them.

The other statement regarding refusing to visit the most successful Primary Care Centre in the country is true from a 3rd party whose permission I do not have to mention.

ardmacha

We've someone who by all accounts has acted with integrity towards the aims set out in the programme for government.

The aims set out in the programme for government may be impossible.

Gilmore seems to have sided with the gang that will keep him in government,

Gilmore has sided with having a government. What is the advantage in bringing down the government? Should he ally with Adams instead?

Shortall pulled a stunt by announcing this when he was on business in the US. A more responsible person would at least have met him beforehand.

Qualitymark

Unfortunately, this (imt.ie) site refuses to let me access it - it's open only to healthcare professionals, not to service users.

Are you saying the Minister for State refused to meet the Primary Care Association and this wasn't reported? How unusual.

test4444

Qualitymark wrote: »

Unfortunately, this (imt.ie) site refuses to let me access it - it's open only to healthcare professionals, not to service users.

Here is the quote:
"Under the mooted public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement, the HSE would sub-lease primary care centres from developers and these would eventually revert to the Executive. The HSE would maintain the relationship with the GP. The GP would be on licence. According to the IMO, such doctors would never have any tenancy rights. The HSE might terminate licensing arrangements after five years, for example, the union fears."

Are you saying the Minister for State refused to meet the Primary Care Association and this wasn't reported? How unusual.

Why would it be? You won't get anywhere complaining to the media. Why not get someone from the media to get an official statement?

Qualitymark

Can you explain this a little, test4444? Would the GPs have to give up their practice? Are you saying the GPs are adamantly against Bill Reilly's plan for primary care centres? (Sorry if I'm being dim here.)

OMD

Qualitymark wrote: »

Are you saying the Minister for State refused to meet the Primary Care Association and this wasn't reported? How unusual.

Ms Shortall was criticised yesterday for her failure to meet the Irish Association of Primary Care, the organisation representing private companies involved in the building of primary care centres.
Chairman Jack Nagle said she had not even replied to their request for a meeting.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
Irish Independent 4 days ago



The IMT.ie article if you want it:
By Gary Culliton.
Local meetings have been organised by the HSE in the South to discuss potential locations for primary care centres and to gauge levels of interest. However, the Executive has “an obsession with premises and not with services” the IMO has charged. The HSE are proposing to build 20 primary care centres with the first centres due to emerge in the South.
There are no additional diagnostics planned or enhanced primary care type facilities in prospect at the proposed primary care centres, the union said. “There has been no indication that hospital services will transfer to the community and this is a big concern,” said IMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations, Eric Young.
Under the mooted public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement, the HSE would sub-lease primary care centres from developers and these would eventually revert to the Executive. The HSE would maintain the relationship with the GP. The GP would be on licence. According to the IMO, such doctors would never have any tenancy rights. The HSE might terminate licensing arrangements after five years, for example, the union fears.
The package being offered to doctors in relation to primary care centres in the South is “not very attractive”, the IMO said. “These new centres are very much about bricks and mortar – replacing centres that GPs may have already.” What the Executive has on offer “might be attractive to newly emerging GPs, though even this appears unlikely. The rates and facilities on offer are not particularly attractive,” said Young.
“Nor are new services a certainty – which might bring added value for patients. I don’t see why doctors would enter into the proposed licence agreement. I don’t see many doctors availing of the new arrangements. The doctors would not have any right to tenancy. They would be operating very much at the behest of the HSE. New facilities and services are not in prospect.”


Finally: if anyone is interested here is the actual letter Reillywrote to Shortall
www.thejournal.ie/roisin-shortall-resigns-letter-611947-Sep2012/

femur61

n97 mini wrote: »

Any link to back that up?

A family member living in the US was diagnosed with cancer six months before she was due to move home to Ireland. The advice from doctors in Ireland and in the US was that she would get better care in the US.

I did read a couple of years ago that you are 4 times more likely to survive cancer in the US than here.

AFAIK and what I read health care is extrremely expensive in the US so maybe the health system is better here because it is accessible to everyone (eventually).

Qualitymark

femur61 wrote: »

I did read a couple of years ago that you are 4 times more likely to survive cancer in the US than here.

AFAIK and what I read health care is extrremely expensive in the US so maybe the health system is better here because it is accessible to everyone (eventually).

Part of the reason for this may be that people go to the doctor a lot more in the US. I know two men, for instance, whose cancer was discovered during a checkup for insurance - one testicular cancer, the other colon cancer. Whereas friends in the US go for colonoscopies every two years after the age of 50.

They also go to the dentist more; I talked to a dentist a couple of years ago who told me he'd spotted three cancer cases in his first 18 months of practice. (By the same token, must go to the dentist, haven't been for years...)

Another Irish friend, God rest her, did go to her doctor regularly, and asked him each time about a small weeping sore that wouldn't heal on her leg. It was only when he was on holiday and the locum sent her for a hospital investigation that she discovered it was skin cancer, too far advanced by then to be cured.

test4444

Qualitymark wrote: »

Can you explain this a little, test4444? Would the GPs have to give up their practice? Are you saying the GPs are adamantly against Bill Reilly's plan for primary care centres? (Sorry if I'm being dim here.)

Currently a GP either owns or has a long lease on a physical premise called their surgery. The GP's Practice runs out of this surgery and typically has patients from the local area. In the already built Primary Care Centres the GPs either own the centre or have long renewable leases. Reilly wants this type of Public Private Partnership to be the model.

Shorthall changed this to be trotsky like system where the central govournment owns everything and the GP can work in the centre at the whim of the HSE. Imagine giving up your surgery premises and moving your practice several miles down the road. You will loose some patients and gain others, but then in 5 years you have to find new premises or move back to your old one if you still own it. You will lose patients and not gain back the patients you lost as they now have a new GP. Your patients will not be happy. Your practice will shrink, you will be out of pocket all the expenses of moving, informing patients etc.

Remember Reilly is in this for the long haul not the short hall.:)

Qualitymark

Perhaps the simplest solution would be to then give the primary care centres the medical card patients, and allow the GPs who wished to stay totally private? Would that work?

thebman

test4444 wrote: »

Currently a GP either owns or has a long lease on a physical premise called their surgery. The GP's Practice runs out of this surgery and typically has patients from the local area. In the already built Primary Care Centres the GPs either own the centre or have long renewable leases. Reilly wants this type of Public Private Partnership to be the model.

Shorthall changed this to be trotsky like system where the central govournment owns everything and the GP can work in the centre at the whim of the HSE. Imagine giving up your surgery premises and moving your practice several miles down the road. You will loose some patients and gain others, but then in 5 years you have to find new premises or move back to your old one if you still own it. You will lose patients and not gain back the patients you lost as they now have a new GP. Your patients will not be happy. Your practice will shrink, you will be out of pocket all the expenses of moving, informing patients etc.

Remember Reilly is in this for the long haul not the short hall.:)

Jebus that would be a nightmare of HSE basically threatening GP's if they were out of favor with them.

Royal Legend

Just goes to prove that Labour and Shorthall live in cloud cookoo land, they had no policies that were based on any economic reality, they pretend to be on the left, a party of the working class, but yet they setup in government with the extreme right wing capitalist policies of Fine Gael. Politics in this country is an absolute joke.
Enda Kenny promised change, a new type of politics, another joke, what we have now is even worse than before and when Kenny looks for excuses for what he is doing he either blames the previous government or behind closed doors (and in europe) he blames us the people for being greedy. Fat Cats rule and O'Reilly is one of the Fat Cats. Labour know that if a snap election is called then they will be destroyed at the polls, so they are all backing what is not a corrupt government so as to save their ministerial pensions.

Qualitymark

Royal Legend wrote: »

so as to save their ministerial pensions.

How long do you have to be in government before getting such a pension?

Trotter

Joan Burton was less than committed in her support for Shortall on RTE radio there. You hear her defending O'Reilly and his pals and think.. Labours way or Frankfurts way.. and you cringe.

I have no clue who Im going to vote for in the next election. But it wont be Labour, FG, FF, or SF. If all the options show that the sniff of government turn them into serfs to the elite then theres no hope for this country unless you're in the top top bracket.

I had so many hopes for the Greens..
I had so many hopes for Labour.

Nothing changes.

Royal Legend

Trotter wrote: »

Joan Burton was less than committed in her support for Shortall on RTE radio there. You hear her defending O'Reilly and his pals and think.. Labours way or Frankfurts way.. and you cringe.

I have no clue who Im going to vote for in the next election. But it wont be Labour, FG, FF, or SF. If all the options show that the sniff of government turn them into serfs to the elite then theres no hope for this country unless you're in the top top bracket.

I had so many hopes for the Greens..
I had so many hopes for Labour.

Nothing changes.

You are possibly missing the point, Labour and the Greens talk the good fight, but in reality what they base their manifestos on is not feasible. Its great to spout that all people should be equal, that healthcare should be available to all, that there should be no waiting lists, that everyone should have a job, and a decent wage, that green energy should be the only energy we use etc etc, but thats just a pipedream, the pipedream costs way too much and was never practical in the first place. So when they do get into government, they look stupid, they look like they are reneaging on promises, (which were pipedreams) that they back the status quo, that they have betrayed the electorate.
I would not use the same terms for FG, they just blatently lied to get into power

Qualitymark

Royal Legend wrote: »

You are possibly missing the point, Labour and the Greens talk the good fight, but in reality what they base their manifestos on is not feasible. Its great to spout that all people should be equal, that healthcare should be available to all, that there should be no waiting lists, that everyone should have a job, and a decent wage, that green energy should be the only energy we use etc etc, but thats just a pipedream,

Works fine in France.

amen

I did read a couple of years ago that you are 4 times more likely to survive cancer in the US than here.

A big reason for this is that we have too many local hospitals in Ireland with the cancer doc seeing 10-15 patients a year. If you go to a big national hospital were you have a doctor seeing 1,000s of cancer patients a year the survival rates go up.

Part of the National cancer strategy is to concentrate cancer care in a few national centres of course then we have the save our local hospital campaigns.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Trotter wrote: »

Theres a bigger picture here. We've someone who by all accounts has acted with integrity towards the aims set out in the programme for government.

But, as I think some have said, the programme for government is not implementable. OK, in the interview she pays some lip service to the idea that savings should be pursued in the drugs bill. But that's needed just to stay within budget in respect of existing services. We surely need to prove that we can afford to continue to cover the GP costs of 40% of the population, before we attempt to cover the costs of the remaining 60%.

I'm not especially canonising Reilly in this. I'm just expressing profound sceptism over this veneration of the programme for government, which is an utterly unrealistic (and sometimes self-contradictory) document.

The fact that our Government committed to such nonsense programme is, I feel, evidence that the system as a whole is unable to grasp and grapple with the situation we're in. Nothing suggested to me that Roisin Shorthall was making a contribution to anything that was actually going to contribute to national recovery.

Instead, her depiciton of herself solemnly beavering away on the primary care elements of the programme for government, as if the rest of the world didn't exist, encapsulates for me what's wrong with our system of Government. So long as someone feels they are "covered" by some scrap of paper, in this case the farcical programme for government provisions on health, no-one has to engage with the challenge that actually needs to be faced.

Within the health sector, the one issue that's consistently being dodged - where saving could possibly be pursued without enormously impacting on patients - is further rationalisation of small hospitals. If you really want to save money, you can do it by reducing the number of outlets. Instead of that, we've protection of small hospitals - not out of any concern for health, but rather to protect employment outside of the cities. The programme for government is particularly weak in its engagement with the small hospital issue.

So, yeah, thirty minutes of a very saddening interview; all you need to be deemed to have integrity is to adhere to some damaging and unrealistic "principle".

Qualitymark

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

So, yeah, thirty minutes of a very saddening interview; all you need to be deemed to have integrity is to adhere to some damaging and unrealistic "principle".

Is it only in Ireland that the word principles has to have double quotes around it?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Qualitymark wrote: »

Perhaps the simplest solution would be to then give the primary care centres the medical card patients, and allow the GPs who wished to stay totally private? Would that work?

One solution, which might help, is if the HSE just employed GPs on salaries, the way that some hospital consultants are now employed. Then there wouldn't be this whole merry dance with GPs - who have the status of self-employed contractors - as the doctor would just be on your staff.

This would require a significant change in policy, and would take a bit of working out for implementation. But it's probably the destination we need to get to. However, I don't think anyone has this on the agenda.

Trotter

Royal Legend wrote: »

You are possibly missing the point, Labour and the Greens talk the good fight, but in reality what they base their manifestos on is not feasible. Its great to spout that all people should be equal, that healthcare should be available to all, that there should be no waiting lists, that everyone should have a job, and a decent wage, that green energy should be the only energy we use etc etc, but thats just a pipedream, the pipedream costs way too much and was never practical in the first place. So when they do get into government, they look stupid, they look like they are reneaging on promises, (which were pipedreams) that they back the status quo, that they have betrayed the electorate.
I would not use the same terms for FG, they just blatently lied to get into power

I disagree that its all a pipedream. But.. Even if it was, people can accept that things don't work out. What people can't accept is dishonesty, shifty Arthur Daly politics, bullsh!ttery from interviewed TDs and TDs changing their stories and lobbing out the party line every time they're elected. If Labour's aspirations turned out to be way out of line, then they should say so and act with ethics and be upfront and honest.

Once they step into the area of covering up, talking around in circles at interview while assuming we're thick enough to fall for it, pulling strokes and worse still covering for other people's strokes.. then they become unvotable.

Nobody should ever vote for anyone who changes their tune (beyond being honest that certain plans arent working out) when they cross the floor of the Dáil. It raises questions of a TDs integrity.

Qualitymark

Incidentally, were the 15 extra primary care centres Reilly added to the original 20 going to be the Trotskyite kind or the capitalist kind?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Trotter wrote: »

If Labour's aspirations turned out to be way out of line, then they should say so and act with ethics and be upfront and honest.

But isn't it hard to understand how, a year and half ago, anyone's aspirations could have been out of line?

For instance, how could Labour and FG have committed to extend free GP cover to the whole population, at a cost of hundreds of millions, in February 2011?* That's what shows the extent of the problem. Roisin Shorthall's departure is only a symptom; and by that I mean her use of a language, concepts and frame of reference that have ceased to apply.

Fair play to Marian Finucane, incidently, who did her job in just bringing out the pertinent facts in a balance and non-judgmental way. For what it's worth, I feel Marian Finucane is one of RTE's best - like Micheal Parkinson, she understands that when she's doing her job right, you shouldn't even notice she's there.



(*Just to be clear, the €15 million Roisin mentions in the interview in respect of extending GP cover is just an initial promised extension to a relatively small number people with long term illness cards.)

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Qualitymark wrote: »

Incidentally, were the 15 extra primary care centres Reilly added to the original 20 going to be the Trotskyite kind or the capitalist kind?

Hard to know - it's all part of this ""stimulous" package, so the source of finance is not clear and may effectively be the State. But the format will likely involve private developers.

Royal Legend

Trotter wrote: »

I disagree that its all a pipedream. But.. Even if it was, people can accept that things don't work out. What people can't accept is dishonesty, shifty Arthur Daly politics, bullsh!ttery from interviewed TDs and TDs changing their stories and lobbing out the party line every time they're elected. If Labour's aspirations turned out to be way out of line, then they should say so and act with ethics and be upfront and honest.

Once they step into the area of covering up, talking around in circles at interview while assuming we're thick enough to fall for it, pulling strokes and worse still covering for other people's strokes.. then they become unvotable.

Nobody should ever vote for anyone who changes their tune (beyond being honest that certain plans arent working out) when they cross the floor of the Dáil. It raises questions of a TDs integrity.

They spent two years plus of complaining that the government was was not spending ENOUGH money, but as soon as they got in they complained that they did not realise just how bad the finances were!!!
Both parties lied to get into government, but one (Labour) actually believed in the rhetoric they were spouting, whereas FG knew exactly what they were doing.

Qualitymark

Royal Legend wrote: »

Both parties lied to get into government, but one (Labour) actually believed in the rhetoric they were spouting, whereas FG knew exactly what they were doing.

a) If you believe something, are you telling a lie?

b) Is it more moral to be utterly cynical?

sparkling sea

Very interesting interview, I wouldn't have been a fan of Ms Shortall in the past but she has definitely won me round. Putting the best interest of the Irish people before one's own ambition is not the norm in Irish politics; in fact its so unusual that some people are stating, a well seasoned 20 years political experienced Ms Shortall was politically naive in resigning.
The idea that a politican would stick to their principles and question what looks to any objective person "stroke politics" is just so out of the realm of possibility that many people feel it just can't exist here.

Its well documented that Ministers in the past have put the best interest of their constitunencies before the good of the whole country; this way of doing business has been a huge factor in Ireland's many downfalls and still Ms Shortall is seen as political naive as oppossed to Mr Gilmore ( now known as Eamonn "Spring" Gilmore).

I hope Ms Shortall has started a surge that will see Mr Gilmore removed as the leader of Labour; she resigned the whip and hopefully her aim is to expose just how unleader like Mr Gilmore is; he just doesn't have leadership qualities; he has lost 4 TD's since the election and more will follow if he doesn't take a principled stand soon.:(

With any look the James Reilly will be gone ASAP too

Qualitymark

The only way we can get rid of stroke politics is by getting rid of the system where politicians represent a constituency, and instead electing them on some other basis.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Royal Legend wrote: »

Both parties lied to get into government, but one (Labour) actually believed in the rhetoric they were spouting, whereas FG knew exactly what they were doing.

But how could either of them have thought there were resources to fund new primary care entitlements, at a cost of hundreds of millions, when it was clear that it would be next to impossible to even protect existing entitlements? It just strikes me as incredible.

Then again, I've no idea why anyone would have subscribed to such an unfeasible programme for government. I don't know why an incoming government would commit to actions they were plainly unable to deliver.

Qualitymark wrote: »

The only way we can get rid of stroke politics is by getting rid of the system where politicians represent a constituency, and instead electing them on some other basis.

You could be right.

Has anyone any idea how Wexford General Hospital got to be the priority for capital funding? Seemingly its extension is actually being built, as distinct from these primary care centres that are just proposals at this stage.

http://www.wexfordpeople.ie/news/20-million-boost-for-hospital-2670492.html

Wednesday June 08 2011

' THE people of Wexford want, demand and are going to get the highest standards of healthcare,' Minister Brendan Howlin said on Friday as he announced a €20 million investment in Wexford General Hospital.


The funding will provide Wexford General's new accident and emergency department and maternity cnit, comprising a delivery suite and theatre. The project will also see the hospital get a new entrance.


' This is a complex capital project involving significant change to the functionality of the hospital in key service areas,' said Minister Howlin.
He said that the project has been included in this year's HSE capital programme and construction will begin in October and that ' because of the complex nature of the work and the build involved, the project will take almost 30 months to complete'. <....>