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

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 [...]

Shocking stuff really, two Health Ministers receive bullets in the post and so do a number of fertility clinics from a crowd called the Irish Citizen Defence Force.
Ridiculous

“To me, services for cancer patients are worse now than they were seven years ago in the midlands”
…
“I am writing out of a deep sense of despair and frustration…I have written to senior management about seven times in the last two years…outlining how we would deal with the problem…all to no avail”

James Reilly of Fine [...]

Whats that old phrase? You can get more done on the inside than on the outside p**sing in. Well Ned is back in as of this evening, to much rapture and delight but no ministry for a while. Should this be taken as a vote of confidence in Minister Harney then?

One wonders if the Cabinet have decided to collect their deferred pay raises as travel benefits. Just in the last few days: Mary Hanafin postpones a trip to the USA by a day to appear at a Dail debate on autism; Dermot Ahern still says he’s travelling across the world to East Timor even with [...]

Update: Finian has been found! On Morning Ireland of all places - god forbid he would put himself at the mercy of Liveline listeners! The promise for the unit for CF patients is contained in Section 5 of the deal document. A new unit is 2/3 years away until completion. Finian is seeking a short [...]

The only surprise with the public sector pay benchmarking report is that the unions sound surprised. The findings have had an air of inevitability going back to the time that the implications of the previous benchmarking round sunk in: a nearly 10% jump in public sector pay, on top of what was agreed in [...]

In late November Mary Harney was under immense pressure over the care of cancer-patients and the direction of the health services. There was a small possibility for blood and the opposition forced a vote of no confidence in the Minister. Despite speculation to the converse, the Minister survived and the only overt damage to government [...]

We all know the HSE is in crisis. Yada yada. Heard it all before. What you might not have seen before is a potential tragedy unfolding as you read. Please, take the time to read right through to the latest entry. Then, take whatever the most prominent emotion you have and email Mary Harney with [...]

The term “public health” is used in various ways but one important meaning refers to the system that monitors for emerging health risks in the population and reports them to an authority that can do something about it.  We’ve traditionally thought of this as the key mechanism for control of infectious diseases: people start showing [...]

The Dail vote results are in and the Government have defeated the motion of no confidence in Mary Harney as Minister for Healty by 83-73 with Ned O’Keeffe abstaining. O’Keeffe had circulated a speech which he was prevented from delivering. It decried the state of the health service and the treatment of patients according to [...]

Hearing from Leinster House that Ned O’Keeffe has resigned from the Parliamentary Party of Fianna Fail tonight ahead of the vote of confidence in Mary Harney. Waiting for confirmation of it but it seems almost certain. It is unclear whether he intends to vote against Mary Harney at present with some suggesting he will [...]

The health debate culminating in the no-confidence motion in Mary Harney is already heated and likely to get more so.  If the pivotal leaders debate before the last election was Bertie at his vote-getting best, then the cut-and-thrust of Dail debate illustrates the less pleasant side of his character.  Consider this RTE account of what appears to have [...]

Labour are going to introduce a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health Mary Harney in the Dail next week. Details of the motion are below the fold.
We ask everyone to contact their local FF/Green/Indp TDs either by phone,fax or email and ask them to support the vote of no confidence in Harney [...]

From Indo
No hospital bed for cancer victim
A WOMAN diagnosed with breast cancer after being given the all-clear has had life-saving surgery cancelled because there was no bed available.

What cancer looks like.