Heart Beat: This is the time of year when I write to Santa with some modest request.
This year I am having a problem with that. I wrote him a nice chatty letter last Christmas pointing out to him many of the hazards he might encounter on his annual trip here.
In it I mentioned jocosely that he was not a very good role model, referring to the drink and the pipe and his being a bit overweight. I am afraid he may have taken this seriously. I thought I was being quite subtle, but I think now that my subliminal public health message may have annoyed him intensely.
How else can I explain that I got nothing at all last Christmas, not even a card? I wouldn't mind but I had only asked for a miserable toll bridge.
I heard later that he couldn't give me one, because they had all been promised to the "friendly elves" in their golden circle, and that they had been distributed in seasonal crackers wrapped in unbreakable contracts. That explains why you miserable folk wait for hours to pass through the gates - they are guarded by unbreakable contracts and you can do nothing about it. Mind, you are lucky to be allowed on the road at all.
As it happens I know all about unbreakable contracts as I and my 1,700 consultant colleagues have one. The ruling elves want us to renegotiate same. For my part I would do so willingly, when either a) hell freezes over or b) when the tolls are removed and the citizens can move freely on the roads that they themselves have paid for.
The author Ernest Bramah, writing of the Chinese philosopher Kai Lung, his central character, wrote of the sage meeting a bunch of brigands on the road. Courtesies and civilities were exchanged, whereupon the leader of the brigands, aka the Minister, opined that such a felicitous meeting required a mutual exchange of gifts.
Whereupon the brigands took everything Kai Lung possessed and in return gave him a ferocious beating. The medical consultants, should they chance on such brigands, would do well to recall this cautionary tale.
Leaving that aside, I must admit that it gives me a certain satisfaction to point out to you S. Claus, that you are no longer the only game in town. Chief Elf Bertie and his ruling circle have long been envious of the goodwill factor that you engender in the population at this time of year, and of the trust and belief that they repose in you.
You must see their point, as there is an election coming and if they got even a slice of your action they might rise in the polls, powered as usual by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hot air.
Accordingly, Money Elf Brian was instructed to fill his sack with goodies and do his trick before you showed up with your train sets and dolls. This was to be done at a Saturnalian debauch called the Budget, and such was the largesse to be distributed that you would be relegated to a very minor role.
Accordingly, the elves gathered to promulgate the good news and receive the adulation of the grateful people on this happiest of days. Then what happened?
A relatively junior elf went on a solo run and rained on the parade. There had been rumours that some of the trolls in his department didn't want to work for him any more and the Chief Elf had to call him in and tell him to cop himself on.
This, however, does not daunt our hero, who apparently then wanted to dish out cars, thus upstaging Senior Elf Brian who was about to dip into his sack for the real action. He then went on steam radio to tell us all that he was misunderstood.
The good news agenda was well and truly eclipsed. Chief Elf Bertie was not amused and moved with unusual celerity and the hapless elf simply disappeared.
Needless to say, those evil goblins in the media had a field day and the stories did not lose in the telling. Perhaps the Chief Elf would be of like mind to Jean Cocteau who, when asked what he would like to see hanging on his Christmas tree, is reputed to have replied "journalists".
In any case Santa, you can turn your attention elsewhere for the next year or so. We are going to be looked after as never before. We'll have roads, bridges, private hospitals, even new trolleys for the public hospitals and anything else you can think of.
We'll have three, five, 10-year plans to appeal to every taste. We'll have stadia theatres and concert halls and everybody will be decentralised away from dirty Dublin to dance at the crossroads and perhaps speak the mother tongue. Why are you laughing Santa?
Oh you've heard it all before. Perhaps we'll go on believing in you Santa, at least you can touch the doll or the train set.
Happy Christmas everybody, I hope you all get what you want and we certainly don't deserve what we've got.
Might I just ask one little favour or two really, a flak jacket for Minister McDowell and could I ever get to be a consultant? I mean a real consultant, not one of those medical ones. Money is no object and you can squander away to your heart's content, there is no responsibility and no accountability either. The only qualification seems to be that you can spend other people's money with panache.
Don't tell me those jobs are reserved also. At least we can all still laugh.
• Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon.