Heartbeat: Politicians are bad for your health. There ought to be a warning pinned on each politician as they come looking for your vote.
I don't mean just health services, or rather the lack of them. I mean the rising ire and consequently blood pressure felt by the ordinary citizen when confronted by one unsustainable promise after another. This is not only a Government predilection; it appears to be a universal political plague.
I am no Cassandra or doleful doomsayer, but common sense tells us that there are reasons for genuine concern in this economy right now. Many of these, such as rising interest rates and fuel prices and knock-on effects from other economies, are beyond our control. This does not excuse us from wringing our hands and doing nothing at all.
We must seek to conserve what we have, and mitigate, in so far as we are able, these outside influences. We must eliminate the consequences of our own rash behaviour.
If you individually, and we as a nation, choose to believe the promises and blandishments prepared for your seduction, then we shall assuredly end up with the Government we deserve. "Anything you can do, I can do better" is not an appropriate national hymn.
How about some party saying that in these uncertain times, all that we can promise is that we will do our best and put the people first? That we will by organisation, consultation and rationalisation endeavour to provide decent services and standards in Government behaviour, in health, education, the environment, transport and communications. I'd vote for them.
I don't want to hear about further tax cuts, these are simply not practicable if the economy dips. As for cutting PRSI, whatever became of Minister Séamus Brennan's pension "time bomb"? Has its ticking clock been suspended until after the election?
I suppose, in reason, if politicians handed out gale warnings and umbrellas, they would be unlikely to prosper, but let us consider favourably those who admit that sometime, even in the distant future, it might rain. But there are choices, and as Voltaire wrote, "Si nous ne trouvon pas des choses agreeable, nous trouverons du moin des choses nouvelles" translated as, "if we don't find anything agreeable, at least we'll find something new".
I complain a lot, don't I? I will continue. Yesterday morning I spent one hour in traffic on the Rock Road between Merrion Avenue and the level crossing at Merrion gates, a distance of less than one mile. All around me, cars, buses, trucks and SUVs emitted happily. Drivers fretted, fumed, or relaxed, according to temperament.
Presumably various enterprises were short staffed as these folk had to be going somewhere. How putting extra VRT liabilities on the luckless souls caught in these logjams will benefit anybody is beyond me, other than to impose yet another "stealth" tax. The traffic chaos is there now, before our new bus lane opens. God alone knows what will happen when it does. Bet you it won't be before the election, no point in further annoying the voters.
In other ways, Minister Dick Roche, or should we call him Aladdin Roche, is really on the ball. He is to go around offering new lamps for old. There is a slight twist in the tale (tail), you're going to have to buy the new lamps yourself. You'd think that with an election coming, they would be given free. It's probably just a story that Aladdin wants the old lamps returned, to see that if by a communal rub of the party relic, a genie might be summoned to restore party fortunes! Meanwhile Minister, how about something as basic as clean water in Galway? Or maybe you might explain to us all, how it is that bottled water per litre costs more than petrol?
Last week it was reported that the nurses who headed for the picket line in Portlaoise were applauded by patients as they went. That must be very heartening for them, and discouraging for those who never helped a patient and yet seek to denigrate those who do.
In this regard, all credit to Dr Jimmy Devins, Fianna Fáil TD in Sligo and vice-chairman of the Oireachtas Health Committee who attended the nurses' protest in Sligo and said he was there to "show support to what I believe are the just claims of the nurses".
Incidentally, I believe that the pay element of the nurses' claim could be settled tomorrow morning in a "financially neutral" way by simply granting all the nurses the €56,000 salary that the Minister claims to be the national average.
The greedy consultants have been shown to be just that, and all was on track to blame them for the Minister's failed service, when the bloody nurses got in the way. Suddenly we have a war on two fronts, something even Hitler found to be beyond him, "Nacht und Webel" indeed, night and fog, nowadays anaemically known as spin.
Now we are to get new consultants, 60/2,000 - think of a number - who can join their colleagues already in place in looking at the wall, as there are no beds to allow them do their jobs. For my medical and nursing colleagues at all grades throughout the State, this has been a very bad time. For the patients it has been worse.
I ask our profession to keep the faith amidst the vituperation and misrepresentation, and I have the temerity to pass on advice received recently by me from a younger colleague returned from North America, "never get into a pissing contest with skunks".
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon.