In a response to my column of last week, Liz McManus complained I had not been listening to her in a debate at UCC earlier this month, when she spoke about the very issues I accused the Labour Party of ignoring, writes Vincent Browne.
I am surprised Liz should so accuse me, for she knows I have hung on her every word for decades, but in that same letter to the editor she avoided my point: that the Labour Party, along with every other party, has failed to address the huge issues of inequality that arise from the report, Inequalities in Mortality, published in 2001 by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
Although I took notes of her contribution, I have no recollection of her making any mention of the report. There is a reference to the report in the policy document on health she released recently, Healthcare, A New Direction, and she has often drawn attention to inequalities in the healthcare system. But that was not the point I was making.
The report shows that in both jurisdictions in Ireland "the 'all causes' mortality rate in the lowest occupational class was 100 per cent to 200 per cent higher than in the highest occupational class".
This was evident for nearly all the main causes of death. For circulatory diseases it was over 120 per cent higher.
For cancer it was over 100 per cent higher. For respiratory diseases it was over 200 per cent higher (ie, three times higher). For injuries and poisonings it was 150 per cent higher.
More specifically, for infectious and parasitic diseases in the Republic the mortality rate was 370 per cent higher than the rate in the highest occupational class.
For tuberculosis in both jurisdictions it was over 300 per cent higher. For cancers of the oesophagus it was over 230 per cent higher.
For colon cancer 50 per cent higher. For lung and bronchial cancers it was 280 per cent higher. Mortality rates arising from diabetes mellitus were 230 per cent higher.
For mental and behavioural disorders, 360 per cent higher. Alcohol abuse, 280 per cent higher. Drug dependence, 590 per cent higher.
These inequalities in mortalities arise not just from inequalities in healthcare but from a broader base of inequality in society, in housing, education, income, wealth, power influence and environmental inequalities.
And the point I was and am making is that the scale of such inequalities is not addressed by the major parties, including the Labour Party.
Were it so, for instance, Pat Rabbitte would not be stating his policy priorities as "first" no increase in taxation and everything else secondary. Surely, "first" should be dealing with the appalling incidence of inequality as represented by inequalities in mortality.
My point was to urge that the scale of inequality become a central issue in the election campaign, and the media have a role in making it so.
There were two other responses to the column that I wish to address. First, David Nally of RTÉ's Prime Time reminded me that Prime Time did not just do a segment on the Inequalities in Mortality report, as I had alleged in my general critique of the media in largely ignoring the report. Prime Time did a one-hour documentary arising from it.
In fact, it was the Prime Time reporter on that documentary, Mike Milotte, who drew my attention to the report in the first place. I hope Prime Time will use the report as part of its agenda in its coverage of the coming election.
Jody Corcoran in the Sunday Independent last Sunday had a prominent piece in that section of the newspaper which retaliates against anyone critical of Tony O'Reilly and of any of his acolytes.
Jody was responding to my remark about Sam Smyth's facilitatory interview with Bertie Ahern. Jody quoted from a previous column of mine in which I was commendatory of Bertie Ahern and this, supposedly, was proof I was "no stranger to hypocrisy".
He went on to refer to an issue that seemed to have no relevance: a deal I came to with the State in 1997 in settlement of the tapping of my telephone for a period of eight years from 1975 to 1983. He alleged the deal included a promise on my part "to keep my mouth shut", ie, secrecy about the deal.
Far from the deal including a commitment to keep it secret, it included a commitment to disclose the deal: an agreed statement saying that while the State believed it was entitled to intercept my telephone conversations because I had been in contact with members of the IRA, it accepted I myself had never been involved in subversion or criminality.
When shortly afterwards I discovered that this justification for the tapping of my telephone was bogus (for at least all but the initial few months of the eight years), I objected to the release of a statement I believed to be false and sought disclosure of what actually had occurred, ie, my phone was tapped to get political information, probably information concerning Charles Haughey.