We’ve identified the problem

Good.  Then you’ve completed Step 1 on page 15 of the Health Services National Partnership Forum Tools For Change Through Partnership — “Identify the Problem”.   And going by yet another Friday news dump, it sounds like if you got to Step 6 — “Review the Outcome” — everyone involved got a junket to New York.  And this is our friends in SIPTU again – including Matt Merrigan — along with HSE management, though not the SKILLS program but another boondoggle going all the way back to the Charlie McCreevy “When I have it, I spend it” days of 1999.   The total amount spent on this program about equals the amount of money involved in the AIB bonuses, except that much of the latter will be recouped by income tax.  The HSNPF money is gone on travel, allowances, and glossy publications like the above, which is simply a generic conflict resolution booklet with a few specific references to the Irish health system tossed in.  Indeed, it’s likely that the bulk of the money went not on the NYC junkets, but on consulting firm drivel like this.  And yet this is a government that apparently is in a new fit of confidence about its prospects.