2007 TIME FOR CHANGE

What is the HSE at?

2007-05-08T22:13:00.000Z

I know I tend to obsess about the HSe but this State Agency is in such a pitiful mess, it is breathtaking!

So last week, the HSE drags a 17 year old to court claiming that she couldn't go to the UK to terminate her pregnancy which would result in a child being born, only to die. The State's legal team objected to its own Agency's decision to bring the case. The A.G argued that the HSE didn't need to take this case. So over the weekend, the HSE changed its position and started a new legal action to overturn their existing legal challenge. Are you confused? Well I can't blame you if you are. There are now two legal actions arguing two separate positions of which the HSE is on both sides!!

So the question now is why put a 17 year old through this? Why did they not think through this before taking the original legal action? Why did they not contact the AG's office if they were unsure of their position? How much of our money has been wasted trying to victimise this girl? Who will now take responsibility for this debacle? Will the Minister for Health ask for the HSE to answer these questions and make someone accountable?

Well I can't answer all the questions but I know the answer to the last question is simple - NO. No one is ever asked questions and no one is ever held accountable. Maybe its time for a change.

Hello?.....Is there anyone there?

2007-05-01T23:11:00.000Z

"Yes. I am a convicted criminal who is running my business from the maximum security jail in Portlaoise! "

So welcome to our prison service after 10 years of this Government. Being convicted doesn't matter anymore because if your convicted, you still get to talk to the outside world and do whatever you want include running your business!

So now we have the truth - our prison service has failed us and the Minister for Justice then comments that "someone will have to take responsibility for it". What about something novel? Why doesn't he take responsibility after all he is the Minister? Silly me. A Minister is this Government taking responsibility for a Department that they control? Now that would be unique.

Everyone knew that the Prison Service was governed by the prisoners and not the prison authorities. The time has come for change. The time has come for strong decisions to be taken. The time has come Minister's to take responsibility. The time has come for delivering real and sustainable change. For that to happen, we need a change in Government.

HSE has again shown it has lost touch!

2007-04-30T22:12:00.000Z

So the HSE has finally shown his true colours - if we needed further proof! The HSE has now decided to victimise a 17 year old child and prevent her going to the UK to have an abortion. She is pregnant with a child who will not live if born and the same HSE is persecuting her after they neglected the two Dunne children in Wexford two weeks ago.

It is deeply shocking that they failed to protect children who were in need of urgent care but rather choose to victimise a 17 year old who is going through a very difficult time of her life. Not only is she pregnant at 17 and has been told that she will lose her baby, but now they want to emotional damage her for life by making her carry a baby full term, who has no chance of life.

What heartless, callous, vindictive people we have in the HSE! They just want to protect themselves and their positions and care nothing about the people they are supposed to look after. We need this bureaucracy to be torn down and a proper management service put in place who will be caring, proactive and dynamic in their delivery of care to those who need it.

Leave the 17 year old alone and send those who have created this monster agency packing!

FF deliver Environmental Revolution

2007-04-25T22:36:00.000Z

Fianna Fail today promised an "Environmental Revolution" over the next five years if they get re-elected. The reality is that they have already delivered that revolution!

During the lifetime of this Government, they have exceeded every environmental target they have set. The Government's own agency has figures to justify this statement.

Figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that, while Ireland’s Kyoto target in the period 2008-2012 is to limit emissions to 13 per cent above the base line estimate, Ireland’s emissions in 2005 were 25.4 per cent above the base line estimate. So ,in order to meet the target that this Government signed up to, it now requires radical measures so that we can achieve the objective.

This Government has adopted many policies which have damaged our environment and puts us in the camp of countries who have failed to control carbon emissions. Now, on the eve of the election, the Government have been converted to being Green! Perhaps that is because they might need the Green Party to form a Government after the election. It is sad that this Government shows no environmental leadership but rather is motivated by political concerns. It smacks of the "Nero fiddles while Rome burns" syndrome which is one of the hallmark traits of this Government which is bankrupt of ideas and unable to deliver reform where it is needed.

We need to abide by our international obligations and secure the environment we live in. It is time for a revolution but that begins with removing the barriers to change - this Government!

Institutional Death

2007-04-24T21:14:00.000Z

What is going on in this country?

After hearing the appalling news from Wexford on Monday, I checked my calendar to make sure we were living in 2007 and not 1957!

The Gardai were tipped off from an Undertaker that a father had booked coffins for his family on Friday and their response was to ring a priest! They have the legislative powers to intervene but choose to ring a priest! They also rang the HSE and were told to call the Care Doctor service. Is this the same HSE who allowed a woman kill her children two years ago and the same HSE that allowed a woman starve to death in her home in Wexford at the same time? Have they not learnt any lesson? The same Gardai allowed Father Fortune and Father Grennan continue with their abuse of children for years.

It makes me mad as hell that two State Agencies had the power to save two kids lives and instead spent the weekend dotting i's and crossing t's? I am appalled. The people responsible should be charged with Manslaughter for their criminal negligence and sacked.

It also looks like none of these State Agencies want to take responsibility for anything. We already know that the HSE don't protect our elderly in nursing homes and now won't protect children who are in danger.

The time has come for someone to take responsibility for their appalling neglect of their duty. Will either of the Ministers (Health and Justice) take responsibility? Will the Grandfather Taoiseach do anything to protect other vulnerable children or just offer his sympathy for State neglect?

We need a urgent independent inquiry into the failure of these Agencies and also the failure of Government to take responsibility for these failings.

Two young kids are dead and it could have been stopped. It is shocking tragedy and points to institutional failure and shocking neglect. We can't bring these kids backl but we can take the next steps to making sure it doesn't happen again - get rid of those who allowed these Agencies to be run so badly - the Government!

COMMITTED TO BLOCKING THE TRUTH

2007-02-22T22:19:00.000Z

Yesterday's events have been much commented on by politicians and journalists. the arrest of a journalist for exposing the truth was, many people maintain, a shocking event.

However, the surprise and shock of this development is matched by the surprise that people have shown to the story. This is not a new development for the State especially one governed by Fianna Fail. Two Irish Times journalists have already been threatened with imprisonment over revealing facts relating to payments to Bertie Ahern. Geraldine Kennedy and Colm Keena told us how the current Taoiseach profited from high office and now face jail for doing so. The latest development in which a journalist who revealed that the Gardai tried to stitch up the wrong man for a crime he didn't commit, now faces a long jail sentence for doing so. Should the Government not be spending this time ensuring that this type of abuse of power by the Gardai never happens again? Probably not because the Morris Tribunal in Donegal has revealed that corruption and malpractice could well be endemic.

Corruption in Irish life has cost us millions and even more to investigate. However, journalists are able to expose the truth much faster and cheaper but this Government tries to prevent the truth coming out. They have severly limited the scope of the Freedom of Information Act and has even lead to the Information Commissioner criticising the Government for the restrictions. Indeed, she even referred to the Gardai last May - she said she finds it 'quite extraordinary' that certain public bodies do not come under the remit of the act. Referring to the exclusion of An Garda Siochána, the commissioner said that Scottish police came under a Freedom Of Information Act in that jurisdiction and 'the heavens hadn't fallen'. She said people would not be entitled to information on criminal investigations but she believed people were entitled to make requests for information on what she called the administration of policing.

We do need open, accountable Government and and not one where stifling the media through legislation and prosecution is the order of the day.

Openness in Government is now looking more like our Health Service - Third World!

NURSING HOME MADNESS

2007-02-12T21:38:00.000Z

Have we finally lost the plot??

The HSE, the biggest bureaucracy in the State, today demonstrated just how stupid they are. They announced that a nursing home in North Dublin is not fit for purpose and has written to all public residents advising them that they have a month to find alternative accommodation. Now that in itself is not strange accept that they are leaving all private patients in the home!!

Now surely if the home is too bad for all public patients to stay there, then is is bad for all. They should go to the High Court and shut it down. They should also publish their inspection reports so that the families of the private patients would have the same information as the HSE when making their decision. The HSE won't do this, they don't care about all patients but just want to cover their own asses.

Of course, if we had a Nursing Home Inspectorate which has been on the cards for 2 years and has not happened yet, all patients would be treated the same. The Government moved fast to give their mates tax breaks to open homes, emergency legislation to take money back from nursing home patients but have dragged their heels on actually helping and supporting those people who are in homes. This is a shocking indictment of their failure once again and a shocking abuse of our elderly.

Families who have relatives and friends in nursing homes have been given no re-assurance by today's events, rather they now have further proof of a Government who doesn't care and has no will to help the most vulnerable.

BUEAUCRACY 1 - CHILDCARE 0

2007-01-26T02:58:00.000Z

Trite headline but the message is stark!

Today's news that the HSE failed a 14 year old Waterford girl is a very sad but a damning indictment of a system which is more interested in processes and procedures than in real people.

The Government is responsible for Health policy but increasingly they are disassociating itself from the implementation - "that's the responsibility of the HSE". That's easy to say but everyday, lives are being placed in danger because of systemic failures and mal-administration.

The case of Michelle Bray is a tragic one. The tragedy is not Michelle's fault but the State's.

She was failed by a system which was more interested in process than results. They believed that case conferences were more important than saving the life of a girl who was in real and imminent danger. They identified the danger, identified the solution but never execeuted the strategy. The result was death.

Sometimes stories like Michelle's are treated as political events. The reality is that this story is about a human tragedy in which the State took the leading role. They knew she was vulnerable, they knew she was in need of help but they did nothing. Some people would argue that the HSE is to blame and not the Government but the reality is that the processes which the HSE adhere to are derived from Government policy.

The response to Michelle's tragedy is even worse. Do the Government step in and say, this needs to be investigated? this is not acceptable? NO. The answer to this tragedy is that the very organisation who failed Michelle will investigate why the failing happened. That's a whitewash and only proves that Michelle's death was in vain.

The HSE has turned into a giant bureaucracy where problem solving and patient focus is something they clearly don't understand. It's interesting that one of our Public Representatives can write twice to the HSE to try and save Michelle's life and never even gets a response back - not even an acknowledgement. Even the postal system in the HSE does not work!

It's too late for Michelles but her case is not an isolated incident. The time has come for change. A change where people and not process always wins and where human life is not more important than covering your ass.

IT'S OFFICIAL - GOVT CRIME POLICY IS DEADLY!

2007-01-22T21:52:00.000Z

So the truth is finally out! This Government's crime policy is literally killing us. Michael McDowell has presided over the worst homicide figures in the history of the State. Not in 85 years have the figures been this bad. He will go down in the history of the Free State as the Minister for Justice and Law Reform that did everything to ensure that the wrong laws were reformed and that justice is a preserve of the criminal and not the victim. The victims rights have been undermined and the law takes no account of them and nothing has been done to redress this. Yesterday, the CSO released these terrible figures:

Murders up 6.5%
Drug offences up 13.1%
Assault up 6.9%
Arson up 16.7%
Theft up 2.6%
Theft from shops up 11.9%
Burglaries up 6.2%
Robberies from person up 9.7%
Fraud up 27.3%

These figures are truly shocking and give a clear indication the Government policy is clearly not working. So there is a real need for some radical policy changes. The time for change is now.

NEW NDP TOMORROW - BUT WILL IT WORK?

2007-01-22T18:51:00.000Z

So tomorrow will be the big day and the new National Development Plan will be launched in a blaze of publicity but will it really make a difference?

The context is that since 2002, the population in Ireland has increased from 3.917m to 4.234m or by an astonishing 8.1%. That sort of population growth requires better planning, smarter investment and cleverly designed infrastructure improvements.

However, we have to judge future performance by past delivery. After all, we have 10 years to judge this Government. So let's look at the facts. Last year, the Government launched Transport 21, an ambitious transport investment programme. However, while the plan included some new projects, it also included projects from the last NDP which weren't achieved during that plan as well as projects previously dropped such as joining up the two luas lines (which is going to cost hundreds of millions more than if it was done as planned in 1997).

At the launch of Transport 21, the Government's own economic thinktank, the ESRI, made the following comments on the plan which they believe is "seriously flawed":

Individual projects are not costed but bundled to cost €34.4 billion.
No cost benefit analyses have been published.
No alternatives are compared.
No origin and destination data have been published to support the investments in Transport 21.
Transport 21 shows the lack of any evaluation culture in the Department of Transport and its spending agencies.
Transport 21 has no set of shadow prices for evaluating the benefits of transport investment such as time and accident cost savings.
Transport 21 ignores the Goodbody Report on the independent bus sector, which showed that the sector had a larger passenger income than Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann and Iarnrod Eireann and a bus fleet double the Dublin Bus, and Bus Eireann fleet combined.
Transport 21 ignores the large recent reductions in bus fares achieved by the licensing of independent bus operators between Dublin and Cork and Dublin and Belfast and the large increases in service frequency resulting from deregulation. These results have been obvious for some time between Dublin and Galway and Dublin and Waterford.
Transport 21 has no consumer focus. Competitive bus services are invariably cheaper and more frequent than railways. Air travel on competitive routes such as Dublin-Cork is faster and frequently cheaper than railways but air and bus are ignored in favour of rail.
Transport 21 ignores the unused capacity of QBCs (quality bus corridors) in Dublin but opts for rail based solutions for 155 million of the 175 million extra passengers it seeks to attract to public transport. It ignores the low market shares, high costs, declining productivity and declining yields from rail transport.
Transport 21's "Rural Transport Initiative" also fails to examine market based alternatives and will cost an average of €36 return to bring its passengers to local towns and villages.
Transport 21's excess costs of over-investment in motorways between Kilcullen and Waterford and Portlaoise and Cork will cost a combined €1.5 billion to provide capacity of 55,000 vehicles a day where traffic volumes now and for decades ahead will not reach that volume.
Transport 21 does not take into account the Comptroller and Auditor General's analysis of the large costs overruns on national road investment between 2000 and 2006, which had a €10.8 billion, overrun on an initial cost estimate of €5.6 billion. Projects were so frequently reclassified as non-standard that the outturn cost systematically exceeded the standard costings. Cost overruns occurred on the Drogheda bypass, the Youghal bypass (built under a more stringent design and build contract), the Ennis bypass (a "fixed price" contract) and the Edgeworthstown bypass reported at opening as "within budget" but investigated by the Comptroller because of an increase from €12m to €46m.
The rail emphasis in Transport 21 lacks economic appraisals of projects such as the Airport-Swords metro, the Tallaght-Ballymun metro, the Lucan luas and the Dublin Interconnector, which duplicates the existing Houston-Connolly line.
Transport 21 shows regulatory capture of the Department of Transport by its spending agencies such as CIE, NRA, RPA and engineer dominance in these bodies.
Detailed proposals for the development of economic appraisal of transport investments by the Departments of Finance and Transport and the development of an Irish public sector evaluation culture are included in the paper.
Pending proper economic evaluation of its contents Transport 21 should not become a "letter of comfort" for the spending agencies favoured in it

So that does not offer much comfort! The Government will announce a plan costing up to €184bn. The question is whether that €118bn will include the €34.4bn previously announced last year for Transport 21? They usually do this so this will be no surprise. Will it also include some of the projects that it previously failed to deliver in the last NDP? Probably, as it has done that in the past and did it in Transport 21. Will it set out clear delivery dates for all projects? Will it resolve the planning issues surrounding the building of major infrastructure projects which it has promised to do for the last five years but has failed to do so far?

If an ambitious National Development Plan is to succeed, it will require a commitment and dedication which has not been evident to date. It will also require a commercial focus and not a public sector attitude. So for all the good news expected tomorrow, will this be just a big glitzy launch or will their be a clear delivery focus? The past tells a story and its hopefully one that won't be repeated!

IS INFLATION OUT OF CONTROL?

2007-01-18T18:12:00.000Z

So ten years after taking power, we now have inflation running at extraodinarily high levels and the short term outlook seems to point towards increasingly higher inflation figures.

To make it worse, it seems that most of the increase in the inflation figure is coming from Government controlled and managed services particularly in education and health. Much of this increase is coming from benchmarking awards. However, as costs are rising, the services are not getting better. Benchmarking was all about rewarding public servants for improved productivity. This clearly has not happened in our health service. We now have the double whammy of poor services but increased costs which the taxpayer has to pay for both in increased stealth taxes and poorer services.

We need to ensure that we get better value for money and better services for increased investment. Inflation running at current rates will result in negative wage growth for all those who got the national wage agreement and a spiral of special wage deals and industrial unrest could begin which would shatter our economic stability.

SO WHO IS TO BLAME FOR OUR PROBLEMS?

2007-01-17T23:48:00.000Z

Well here is some food for thought...

In the last 50 years , Fianna Fail has been in office for 39 years. No other party has been in power longer or had the ability to exercise huge change in our society.

So if you look at it another way, when people ask the following questions or make the following statements, the answers are pretty easy:

Our transport infrastructure is a total mess, we never invested in it properly or wisely. We seem to have built the wrong roads in the wrong locations at the wrong time and never really planned any of the other developments long enough! Why did we build the M50 and toll it and never solved the congestion problem when it first arose?Why did we develop land and not build metros, luas lines and recreational facilities at the time of development but do so many years later at massive cost?
The price of houses and our whole development strategy seems to have been piecemeal with no strategic plan in place. This had lead to long commutes, rising house prices and runaway development windfalls for developers. How did this happen? Is this the reason for all the corruption in local government?
The huge inequalities in health and our health services have got worse rather than better. We are still trying to re-develop existing hospitals on sites and in locations which are no longer suitable for modern use. We have forced more and more people into private health insurance. We allow consultants to have both public and private practices where they prioritise the private which results in massive delays and blockages in the public sector. The end result is a system where ability to pay rather than needs always wins. Why didn't we develop a better health service and infrastructure as the population profile changed?
The never-ending rise of the criminal gangs and drug lords. Who is in charge - the Gardai or the criminal? When did criminals get more laws protecting their rights while victims get less? How come the Garda Commissioner can announce more Gardai and patrols after major heists such as the security van robbery yesterday and did not do the same three years ago to really put the criminal under pressure?
The total abuse of our tax system by big business. We have had three tax amnesty's to help influencial business people regularise their tax affairs and encourage business people to avoid tax wherever possible? We give massive tax breaks to businesses to build nursing homes but put no checks in place to ensure they are being properly run and the patients are getting the right care?
Our inability to roll out broadband to the entire population which has lead to the fastest growing economy in Europe being at the bottom of the league when it comes to broadband penetration?

Well, the answers are simple. We have one Party in power for 39 out of the last 50 years and they have shown no imagination, no creativity and no vision. They are clearly bankrupt of ideas, can't think outside the box and have no solutions to our many problems. So when we complain about traffic, health, crime or corruption, the solution to our problems is to make sure those who presided over the creation of them, should not be the people who solve them.

Fianna Fail has failed, it's time for change.

MORE ROADS, MORE COST, MORE VALUE??

2007-01-16T21:00:00.000Z

Well here we go again.... Another roads plan is announced and yet many questions remained unanswered. So we all want new roads and need them but do we need them at any cost?

Only recently we have learned that roads constructed under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) cost €6m more per kilometre than roads actually built by the State. The initial idea behind the PPP was to ensure that the roads were built faster and would deliver better value to the taxpayer i.e cost less. Ironicly, this is now not the case. The roads cost the State more in PPP AND then the private company is entitled to toll the road for the next 30 years which means the private company gets all the benefit, the State gets much of the cost and the taxpayer picks up both the bills - the original cost and the tolls. Does this make sense?

Well to Ministers who have driven in State cars for 18 out of the last 20 years like many of the Fianna Fail T.D's, they don't understand the debate because they don't live in the real world. They are out of touch.

Plus we now have three different tolling organisations with none of the systems integrated. In other words, if you buy an Easypass for the East and West Links, then you can't use it to go through the other tolled roads on the M1 and M4. Makes great sense?

Of course we should not forget that 135,000 people are driving without ever having taken the tests and many are using these roads which they are not even entitled to do. Yet the Government have done little to seriously tackle the problem of people driving who are not qualified to do so.

So after many many years in power, we have yet again another announcement but none of the real issues surrounding cost, value, driving standards and tolling have been dealt with? Maybe this Government needs a break? It is time for change.

GOVERNMENT IS PARALYSED

2007-01-15T19:03:00.000Z

Fianna Fail has been in power for 15 out of the last 18 years and we have the evidence to support why it's time for change. They are paralysed by power for power’s sake.

We need to build a new platform for change in this country and we need to do two simple things – use common sense and show humanity. Let's see what those two characteristics would mean.

Common sense to know that sending up to 10,000 trucks down the M50 to the Port Tunnel while digging up the M50 makes no sense

Common sense to know that when you build a transport system that you produce an integrated ticket system so that if your going to Cork from Drumcondra, you can buy a ticket at Drumcondra that will take you into town on the bus, down the quays on the Luas and to Cork on the train. A common sense solution that only requires determination and focus to achieve it. It is funny that even with road tolling, you can't get one pass that works with all toll roads. If we saw that in a third world country, we would laugh. Well it is a reality in Ireland in 2007. Where's the common sense?

Common sense to know that if you want more women to go out to work that you need to help them do that and also to support those that make the choice to stay at home. This Government hasn’t done either. It penalises both. Individualisation stripped stay-at-home-mothers of their right for their work in the home to be recognised by Government. Those that felt they had to go back to work were met with a childcare system in deep crisis, with costs exploding. Local community childminders were driven out of business by the change in the tax laws and life has become a daily struggle for many families.

This Government has commissioned a vast array of consultant reports to tell them what to do. They carry out cost benefit analysis on every project. Well we can now see the results of these cost benefit analysis – lots of cost and little benefit!

When we talk about Government introducing humanity into policy, we need to look how our policies are going to work at the level in which they impact. For example, if you get diagnosed with cancer in Waterford, you need to go to Dublin five days a week to get treatment. You are separated from your family and friends and forced to cope alone at one of the most difficult times in your life. What sort of Government do we have that breaks families up at a time when they need to be bound together?

Last year a man bleed to death in Monaghan General Hospital because policy and paperwork was more important than he was. We need a health service that is not focused on doctors, nurses, protocols or policy but is focused on one thing – the patient.

It's time for change. It's obvious this Government has little common sense and even less humanity. We need a Government that understands the concerns of the rest of us and not blinkered by State cars and plush offices. After 15 years, they are out of touch and it's time for change!

JOINING THE DOTS - DUBLIN TRANSPORT

2007-01-15T18:59:00.001Z

Well well! Even kids learn to do it in playschool but this Government seems to have lost the ability to join the dots. Luas and Dublin transport is the perfect example.

When the current PD / FF Government took office, there were plans for two Luas lines that actually joined up. Mary O'Rourke scrapped that and decided two separate lines would be better. So, we now have two lines which don't join up. Eight years later, this Government announced in a blaze of glory that it had a great idea - join up the two lines! Fantastic idea except they were the ones who scrapped it in the first place.

However, even this late conversion lacked common sense. The new Metro line from Stephen's Green to the airport is a great idea but why start it at Stephen's Green. The sensible option would have been to start the Metro at Heuston Station and run it to the airport via Stephen's Green. Why Heuston Station? Well it would have been the last piece in the jigsaw. Then all the major stations in Dublin would have been integrated. Many people from the country flying out from Dublin airport travel by train to Dublin either via Heuston or Connolly Stations. Linking the two stations with the airport would have delivered a really comprehensive solution to our transport needs. However, this Government don't think outside the box so we get another half-way house.

Operation Free Flow is another idiotic scheme which is nothing but a PR stunt. No one sees that it makes any difference. The Gardai posted are all new recruits who don't have any traffic management expertise or feel empowered enough to manage the traffic. We need to ensure that the traffic flows work around Dublin. Certain feeder roads and left / right hand turns need to be eliminated to maximise the flow on the main routes. That means some key decisions need to be made and some unpleasant options taken. Government is about leadership and not about shrugging off responsibility to a newly trained Gardai, many of whom are from the country and don't even know Dublin. We need a traffic tsar for Dublin who is made responsible for delivering real change or will be sacked. That would be a big change.

SHAMEFUL - OUR HEALTH SERVICE IN 2007

2007-01-15T18:11:00.000Z

Over the last 8 years, this Government has invested unprecedented funds in our Health Service. You would think that is a good thing but the investment opportunity has been squandered and the people most affected by it our not the Government Ministers but many ordinary people. Let's look at some of the facts:

Spending on hospitals has increased by €2,200,000,000 (€2.2billion) in the last five years. The promise was to eliminate hospital waiting lists - it hasn’t happened.
A&E Units are a national disgrace and yet the numbers attending A&E in the last 5 years have declined by 33,000. So despite more money and less people visiting, how can the service get worse?
Only 4% extra beds have been provided despite all the investment. That’s 518 beds across the entire country. At the same time, there has been an 80% increase in administration staff while front line staff have only grown by 22%.
Prescription costs have increased by an average of 151% after allowing for inflation. Surely, the Government needs to tackle this huge rise in pharmaceutical costs but why
don’t they?
Three Ministers were present when they found out about nursing home charges and they did nothing to protect the patients’ rights. This neglect resulted in a €2 billion cost to the State.

These are just some of the appalling legacies that this Government will leave us with. To give them another 5 years would be madness. It will result in more waste, more bureaucracy, less patient focus and less effectiveness. If we want real progress in our health service then we need to get a Government who have ideas, a vision and a commitment to real change.

IRISH LANGUAGE REVIVAL?

2007-01-13T01:27:00.000Z

By making the Irish language compulsory in the Gaeltacht areas, are we really doing anything to revive the language?

The simple answer is that this Government has taken a stand on the language that lacks any common sense. We all want the language to continue and to expand its use but we need to have a plan that is not based on some traditional ideology based on De Valera's doctrines. Rather we need to look at our national language in the context of a positive and modern view of our country.

This means not renaming towns without discussing it with the local community. Not forcing all Government publications to be printed in Irish and English which means that many State companies spend needlessly on documents which are never used.

Imagine a Government who is totally committed to reviving the Irish language and used the money it had set aside for this to:

give free Irish language classes in all community and parish centres nationwide which focuses on using the spoken language in everyday life
revise the way in which the language is taught in our schools. Isn't it a pity that everyone learns Irish for nearly 15 years in school and then never uses it again? Why can't we as a nation help our kids see the beauty and excitement in our language and help to convince them that it is important to maintain the use of our language which identifies us a unique entity in a increasing homogeneous world

It is interesting that when Irish people travel abroad we all use our language to communicate with each other if we want to say something that no English speaker would understand. We need to tap into that interest and that love of our country. The Government need to drop ideology and replace it with common sense and a real wish to maintain and build our language.

WHOSE MANAGING THE TRAFFIC?

2007-01-13T01:21:00.000Z

It's sort of funny that the traffic situation best represents this Government's record in office. Every year they have been in office, the traffic situation has got worse and it now takes longer to get from one place to the other. Indeed, when you see Iarnrod Eireann producing figures that show that after all the investment in our rail infrastructure that there has been no change in the timw it takes to travel from Dublin to Cork in the last 20 years! Damning evidence if more was needed of this Government's failure.

Let's just look at some examples to prove the point:

After only three years of the investment programme set out by the National Roads Authority, the cost of completing the programme has risen by an astonishing €12,000,000,000 (€12 billion). Most of this extra cost arose from under-estimation of costs in the planning stage. If you were working in the private sector and this happened, someone would be fired. In Ireland, they get promoted!
Only half of the road programme was completed before the 2006 deadline. It is now expected that this entire programme will not be complete until 2011 - 5 years late and billions over budget.
Of six major road building projects reviewed by the Comptroller and Auditor General, he found that costs had escalated by €284 million or by 56%.
We still have no integrated ticketing system across DART, Suburban Rail, Bus and Luas and we must be the only Capital in Europe not to have a
high speed link to the airport.
There is no Director of Traffic with a Dublin wide remit and no substantial park and ride facilities at any of the major public transport hubs. Dubliners now pay €1 million each day on car parking.

Fianna Fail has been in Government for 15 out of the last 18 years and have failed to tackle any of our traffic and transport problems. This shambles is obvious when Dublin Bus, a state owned
company, produces figures annually for what traffic delays cost them - it was €69 million in 2005, which we all pay for!

This year, 10,000 trucks have started to use the Port Tunnel, the Government plan to dig up the M50 causing traffic chaos on the very road the trucks need to use to gain access to the
tunnel! Surely there isn't a better example of their ineptitude and bad planning.

They never think things through and plan on the hoof. We need integrated planning to get our transport infrastructure back on track. The first step is a new appoach and that starts with a new Government.

A STORY OF WASTE

2007-01-13T01:20:00.002Z

The Government have an unbelieveably good record in one area - WASTE! This is the Government who will go down in history as one of the most wasteful ones in the history of our State. It is a sad list of malpractice, bureaucracy gone mad, no real oversight and no commonsense. Let's just look at some examples:

Front line health staff (nurses and doctors) numbers were only increased by 22% while administrative staff rocketed by 80%. They have spent an extra €2,200,000,000 (€2.2 billion) on the health service and now we have a worse service!
Many infrastructure projects completed way over budget. The total cost overruns on the Development Plan now stack up to an amazing €12,000,000,000 (€12billion) of our money! The Port Tunnel is €250m over budget and the Luas cost €500 million more than
projected.
Government spending on legal services has doubled from €81m to €165m and the growth in spending on consultancies particularly PR Companies has grown by115% up to €67million. Spin is costing you dearly!
A value for money audit of eight construction projects in Beaumont Hospital concluded that work that should have cost €368,858, actually cost the taxpayer €782,180 due to
inadequate tendering and monitoring procedures.
The cost of renovating an office in Donaghmede in North Dublin for the Probation service jumped from €150,000 to over €1.5 million - ten times the original estimate.

Isn't it interesting that this Government ignores much of the evidence and talks about the investment that they have made but never looks at the value they got from that investment. In the private sector, expenditure is always linked to value and results. That's because they are accountable for what they spend but the Government think they are above accountability. Do we?

It is deeply shocking that so much of our money is being wasted. If this money was not wasted we could have:

thousands of hours for home help services for
the elderly
thousands more childcare places for hard
pressed families
better medical services for all the community

Since Fianna Fail got elected in 1997, each household is now paying an extra €167 a week in taxes or €8,800 a year! We are paying more local charges, more VAT, more stealth taxes and that money is being wasting. It's time to stop the money wasters!

NURSING HOME SHAME

2007-01-13T01:20:00.001Z

Our health service is in a shambles as Fianna Fail have failed to direct resources to front line services. Just look at their record on nursing homes alone.

Championed nursing home tax breaks for their friends
Failed to protect the elderly in those homes by not puttin a nursing home inspectorate in place and having inadequate control over private nursing homes and having no inspectorate in public nursing homes - as if public nursing homes had exceptionally high standards!
Rushed in laws to get nursing home charges from pensioners. They made the mistake and then they targeted the sick and vulnerable to get money back.
Went on their summer holidays in 2006 rather than create an inspectorate to protect our elderly in nursing homes.

The nursing home sector has been built to help Fianna Fail supporters with their tax breaks and with no oversight. Fianna Fail have constantly talked about their concern for the elderly yet all their policies further intimidate and victimise this group of people. It is an outrage that the very people who have helped build our economy and have given so much to this country, see out their days in nursing homes where they have been abandoned by this Government and where they can be abused and mistreated without any come back.

A Government who does not protect and value its elderly, is a Government who doesn't deserve to be in power.

THE SICK HOSPITAL

2007-01-12T22:58:00.000Z

Why oh why does this Government keep pushing ahead with things that are clearly bad policy decisions. The decision to put the new Children's Hospital in the middle of the city on the Mater Hospital site is simply crazy for a number of reasons:

The existing hospital incorporating the A&E unit needs to be levelled itself and re-built to modern standards.
The Mater is the No.1 heart hospital in the country and as such we should use the site to expand these services
Traffic congestion is chronic around the hospital. Talk to any of the Ambulance drivers and they will tell you that themselves. The Management of the hospital and Government never listen to what workers have to say and have pressed ahead with the hospital
To ignore the views of one of the existing Children's hospitals (Our Lady's in Crumlin) is high-handed and short-sighted

Bertie might well get his hospital but will the people get the service they want. However, this Government's history would not instill huge confidence.