Mary opts to opt out as guideline gang strikes again
Already earning more than US President Barack Obama, the HSE boss was showered with a new windfall despite presiding over yet another year of despair for patients and their families on the receiving end of our health service.
With jaw-dropping indifference, Health Minister Mary Harney only added to the outrage yesterday by insisting Prof Drumm’s pay was “not my responsibility”.
Now, Ms Harney has spent much of the past five years as Health Minister proving she is not that responsible, but one thing she should be able to get a grip on is the salary of the man she has tried to farm out most of the tiresome little areas her job is supposed to consist of to.
“We don’t want a meddlesome minister,” she bleated when asked if she might be kind enough to try and lift a finger to stop Prof Drumm getting such a ludicrously large perk payment at a time when the HSE is looking for savage cuts of €1.2 billion.
Actually, Ms Harney, we do want a meddlesome minister – and it would be quite nice to have a real Health Minister for a change as well. Not someone who is content to sit on the sidelines and look the other way whenever the latest crisis/mismanagement scandal/salary insult engulfs the health service.
Why is an independent TD with not even a background in medicine serving as Health Minister when she clearly tries to have as little as possible to do with the health service she is meant to be in charge of?
Ms Harney could not even be bothered to comment on whether Prof Drumm should hand the cash back – which might seem to most people a pretty reasonable thing to suggest he do, what with the cuts in frontline staff and the fact the service is so short of cash, a life saving cervical cancer vaccine had to be snatched back from 12-year-old girls.
Instead, with appalling arrogance and “let them eat cake” logic, Ms Harney had the nerve to remark that he would have made a lot more if he had stayed in the private sector.
Well, yes he would have, and maybe this country would have been better off if he had – just as it would be better off if Ms Harney handed over her portfolio to someone who a) sounded human, and b) seemed to actually want to do the job.
With no Health Minister to speak of, the nation turned its weary, disbelieving head to the Taoiseach in the hope he would finally give us the smack of firm Government we have been longing for.
But, instead, we once again plunged into the upside down world of Brian in Wonderland where nothing seems to make sense.
Giving off the hue of someone who could barely muster interest in the subject, the Taoiseach shrugged that it was all to do with “contractual arrangements and guidelines”.
Ah, those damn guidelines strike again!
That Guideline Gang must be running amok across Government Buildings, as minister after minister whines: “It wasn’t my fault – the guidelines made me do it!”
Why, those evil guidelines are forcing ministers into private jets and five star hotel suites against their will, and making the Taoiseach himself stand over the €1.1 million pension pay-off to Fás boss Rody Molloy.
Though Mr Cowen’s grip on that particular excuse is looking flimsier than ever as even the guideline gang have deserted him on this one, with internal Government emails showing the pay-off was certainly not the norm.
But then the Government’s position on the extraordinary Molloy golden goodbye has changed so many times now, what’s another retreat from reality?
The sorry spectacle played out as the repercussions from John O’Donoghue’s fall from grace continued to reverberate through the Leinster House corridors with one deputy declaring: “We committed an act of cannibalism.”
Well, at least that meant they were feeding off each other for once, rather than the taxpayer.
