Sir, – Peter McNamara (September 29th) criticised Róisín Shortall for wanting “to shout from the terraces rather than to play on the pitch”.
Actually, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to play, it was that she was confused by her manager’s bizarre instruction to stay on the pitch and play for the other side. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Politics, it is often said, is the art of the possible with little room for idealism; therefore the shenanigans of James Reilly should come as no surprise to the initiated.
When the well-deserved plaudits for the action of Róisín Shortall in resigning her ministry have died down, as they quickly will, she will be seen as having abandoned the fight for her plans for healthcare reform. The lesson to be learned is clear: a minister must find a way to work with colleagues no matter how difficult. I do not see any shame attaching to her colleagues in the Labour Party, nor do I agree with your Editorial that it was the only decision she could have taken. A reshuffle in the Cabinet by the Taoiseach should have been the obvious course. Few would disagree that she put all her efforts into the job of primary care. Instead of departing wrathfully she should have stuck to her guns, looked at the wider picture and the cause of healthcare reform would have been the winner. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Is Alex White being drafted in for the short haul, the long haul or the overhaul? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Minister for Health James Reilly is being vilified by many for promoting the development of two primary care centres in his constituency. It is claimed that he is not adhering to “transparent and objective” HSE guidelines that decide the prioritisation of locations for primary care centre development.
I suppose the HSE bureaucrats who chose the original list of 20 sites are not tainted by their involvement with the previous resource allocation process for primary care teams. The 2010 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General found that population needs assessments were performed in only 15 per cent of cases prior to resource commitment. Hopefully these administrators were not operating on principles that justify the €4 million fit-out cost of the HSE flagship building Chamber House, Tallaght, when the local waiting list for children’s speech therapy of 18-21 months contrasts so greatly with the adjacent, less deprived Rathfarnham area wait of three to four months. Or how about their involvement in the grade inflation that occurred post HSE formation that saw the grade 8 middle management numbers explode from eight in 2004 to 728 in 2009 (average basic salary then of circa €80,000).
It all seems to be a political game of smoke and mirrors in which the frontline clinicians are rarely involved in the decision- making process.
Maybe Mr Reilly was exercising his clinical acumen and common sense when adding locations to this famous list and not indulging in “stroke politics”. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – Many of your contributors think that Róisín Shortall’s resignation was a black day. Of those, quite a few suggest that her stance on alcohol abuse in this country will be missed. At this juncture, we should be looking at another black day – ie when the only truly progressive suggestions for dealing with the problem in this country for the last 20 years were “scotched” by the drinks industry. I speak of Michael McDowell’s forward-thinking cafe-bar proposals.
Maybe the new Minister could include these in any new legislation aimed at curbing consumption? – Is mise,