Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the climbdown regarding the Medical Cards fiasco, I read a post on the weblog of Green Party Justice Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe, which dealt with the Medical Cards issue.
After reading the post, I gave him my view of the Fianna Fáíl / Green coalition, and put some questions to him and [...]

I’m talking out of turn here politically, but if anyone is interested in a practical solution to the over 70s medical card fiasco, there’s my tuppence worth.
I might be asking a rather obvious question here but if the GPs charge the state €640 (the figure itself isn’t really relevant at the moment) for giving people [...]

Fianna Fail have in their defence against  James Reilly Fine Gael’s spokesman on health attacks on the medical card for pensioners debacle. Have mentioned that James Reilly was head of the IMO when Fianna Fail negotiated the deal with them which was very generous (Or so Fianna Fail say). This seems to be trying to discredit  James Reilly [...]

Consider the following hypothetical situation.  Two people both aged, say 76, with identical current incomes (e.g. state contributory pension plus a little deposit interest).  Both now have medical cards.  One got it under the pre-2002 means test due to lower income in some previous year than the other person.The other person got it under the [...]

Jim McDaid is on Newstalk going against the current Medical Card Fiasco seemingly putting the blame squarly at the PD’s or should I say Mary Harney.  Saying that Mary has taken it the wrong direction. He also seemed to indicate that he will vote against the bill.  This is again Fianna Fail playing its own [...]

Mary Harney, Mary Coughlan, Maire Hoctor.  That was one of the lines in the Dail this morning.  Here is the Oireachtas record of the debate on the Order of Business.  The Order is typically agreed in a couple of minutes but an unusually unified opposition turned into a scrum on the medical card for over 70s [...]

Senator Mary White has one of the most interesting ideas of the past while.
Mary White, Dublin Fianna Fáil Senator and campaigner on the prevention of suicide in Ireland, will present a motion at tonight’s Parliamentary Party meeting to call for the reduction of paracetamol pack sizes on sale in shops, supermarkets and petrol stations.
She points [...]

Last Tuesday night I had the misfortune of having to go to an A&E room in a Dublin children’s hospital. Happily my 10 month old wasn’t terribly ill - but an out-of-hours GP had recommended that he be seen by a pediatrician. “Go to Tallaght” the GP advised “you should be seen fairly quickly. Crumlin [...]

Pat Phelan has a horror post about Mrs. Phelans mammogram appointment. After going to the doctor for an appointment she recieved the letter from the HSE (here) for an appointment in 2010.The conclusion though;
Anyways money changed hands, job done, Mrs Phelan is healthy as a horse.
Dont depend on the Irish health care system to save [...]

The report today from Central Mental Hospital Carers’ Group, the Irish Mental Health Coalition and Schizophrenia Ireland about the desirability of moving the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum to Thornton Hall emphasised two major things for me - the first political and relevant, the second trivial, unoriginal and selfinvolved.

Here’s the transcript of today’s showdown in the Dail between Enda Kenny (and a chorus) and Brian Cowen. The record doesn’t capture an apparent swear word that was used by Cowen in the course of the proceedings. But it does make clear that Cowen never answered Kenny’s question about what had happened to [...]

Cowen’s political positioning of the government is very much the slowly slowly affair befitting of a month in May. The cabinet reshuffles were quite deft, keeping the big names happy but at arms length from a putsch while the junior ministries gave the backbenches more hope than Bertie ever dared. It is a mark of [...]

Update: Turbalence Ahead blog links to a recent study by UCD on the causes of drinking in Ireland. Although using UCD as a sample of the population probably is not the most scienctific measure. These are some of the causes.
- if the student attended an all boy full boarding school
- if there is a cricket [...]

The time of the departure of Bertie Ahern has now been announced. What of his legacy, his place in Irish history? Here are some points that might be considered.

It strikes one as serendipity - for the opposition at least - that the Dail debates a motion on the three reports from last week into Port Laoise, the one that gave rise to the Naughton letter and entered ’systems-failure’ in the political lexicon by failing patients in a grotesque multiplicity of manners while the [...]