Time for Leo Varadakar to stand up and be counted

Six months after taking up politics’ poisoned chalice, the honeymoon may finally be over for health minister Leo Varadkar, writes Fiachra Ó Cionnaith.

It goes without saying everyone needs a break to recharge the batteries. But try telling that to a baying public out for blood and, if it’s not too much trouble, a health service that occasionally works.

Six months into his tenure, Health Minister Leo Varadkar is facing the first crisis of his own making, ending a honeymoon period of which James Reilly and Mary Harney could only dream.

As 584 patients continued to wait on trolleys yesterday, Mr Varadkar was returning from holidays in the US.

By his own admission he was in contact with senior HSE officials as the crisis — previously flagged by nurses as something certain to overflow in early January — escalated, and would have heard the growing anger about his public silence.

But despite claims from Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and even the Greens that he went “AWOL” when the public needed him most, the minister only commented yesterday, a week after the scandal began.

Speaking on RTÉ radio and without a group doorstep interview, Mr Varadkar insisted he was on top of the issue and rejected criticism about the claimed inaction from him in recent days.

But the perceived lack of leadership from someone usually all too ready to comment may be hard to shake.

To much opposition frustration, Mr Varadkar has side-stepped the blame for surging hospital waiting lists (390,000 people waiting over a year compared to 310,000 a mere 12 months ago, if you’re wondering) and a continuously under-funded and under-staffed system through the right words and a few tricks of the PR trade.

His authority has also grown over how he handled the Áras Attracta abuse scandal, among other unexpected crises.

But the hospital trolley crisis is different. It is up-front and personnel for too many Irish people to be ignored, and as such has a special place in the nation’s health psyche.

You can’t just wag the finger at ‘system problems’ when you are responsible for overseeing the system, and more than a few will agree with Fianna Fáil health spokesperson Billy Kelleher that it is time Mr Varadkar takes “ownership” of the issue.

It’s not that the minister can’t talk himself out of this one. It’s that he didn’t, or at least didn’t in time. And that AWOL opposition tag — whether a fair version of events or not — could play havoc with ambitious Leo’s future political aspirations.

The latter point is not a side issue; it is a very real part of the trolley fallout.

Politics often throws up moments of high irony, the latest example of which is now before us.

When Mr Varadkar was appointed in July, it was suggested Taoiseach Enda Kenny was trying to shore up his own position as much as help the health service from the perennial crisis it faces.

If the good doctor succeeded Mr Kenny could take some credit for overseeing long-overdue reforms.

Fail, and a growing rival would be damaged.

This is of course the same Enda Kenny who before the 2011 general election promised with significant fanfare that he would “end the scandal of patients on trolleys”.

What a stroke of fortune, then, that despite his plan shattering before his eyes as the next election countdown begins, it is his young pretender and not Mr Kenny himself who is getting it in the neck.

Despite long-term Government failures causing the trolley crisis, at least one person still knows how the system works.