Bertie’s big in Bangalore but they haven’t tried to get a bed in A&E
Acting as unpaid interpreter, Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue shared with the accompanying press corps the thoughts of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who considered the Taoiseach to be a statesman of international repute.
On the first official visit to India by a Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern was given a three-hour audience with the premier, who, apparently, considers the lad from Drumcondra to be some sort of guru.
At least he does according to John O’Donoghue. He accompanied the Taoiseach to the three-hour tête-à-tête and emerged afterwards to declare that Bertie was big in Bangalore.
“It was very clear from what he had to say that he regards the Taoiseach as a statesman of international stature,” purred the minister. “I wish, Taoiseach, that we could use what he had to say on television for our general election.”
No doubt the reputed esteem in which Bertie is held by the Indian premier will be reflected in the enhanced bilateral political and economic relations between the two countries, which was the purpose of the visit.
John O’Donoghue may have been gushing, but Doney Cassidy’s sense of the occasion was positively warped, as was his sense of history.
On the trip as chairman of the Oireachtas committee on enterprise and small business, Cassidy went somewhat overboard when he compared Bertie Ahern’s visit to that of US President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland in 1963.
He was obviously impressed by the scale of the welcome given to the Taoiseach, which included a cavalcade and troops or policemen stationed every 100 metres or so along the route.
The minister and the committee chairman were further impressed when they saw Bertie Ahern working the room, stopping at every table and chatting with the guests, like it was a Fianna Fáil fundraising dinner. In one way, it probably was.
I suppose it’s hard to break the habit of a lifetime no matter where you are.
Meanwhile, the Green Party’s protest on the return of TDs to the Dáil after almost six weeks of Christmas holidays seemed remarkably like little boys not wanting to return to school. Although they would argue the opposite - that they resented the long break.
Green chairman John Gormley said it was ridiculous that the Dáil should return about two weeks after the British House of Commons had, on about January 9.
Of course it’s ridiculous, but what’s even more ridiculous is the fact that our TDs are paid considerably more than the members of that parliament, a point which Mr Gormley did not mention.
The perks are considerably better, too, like the gym we provide for our national parliamentarians.
That, apparently, is even more empty than the Dáil, and seems like a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s part of the €10.5 million refurbishment of the Dáil, but not alone do some politicians not use it, some don’t even know where it is.
Jackie Healy-Rae, the representative from Kerry South, is right to describe it as a “bloody joke”.
Justice Minister Michael McDowell prefers to go walkies with the dog, while junior minister Noel Ahern simply admits he knows nothing about the gym.
We got a very good idea this week of how the health service operates in this country.
It was announced earlier this month, from the high moral ground, that more than 20 hospitals would have their budgets cut by €9.37 million this year because of inefficiencies in 2004.
Then this week, it was announced that the Health Service Executive (HSE) last year spent €56 million it had no right to spend.
Nothing happens, apart from a little embarrassment for our Tánaiste and Health Minister, Mary Harney.
Case mix analysis is supposed to compare hospitals by breaking their activities into discrete units which consume similar levels of resources, thus taking into account the different mix of cases each hospital deals with.
But the hospitals were penalised because of the case mix.
The national case mix programme has been operating in Ireland since 1993 and 37 hospitals participate in the programme. Mary Harney is a great advocate of it and remains committed to the usage of performance-related funding, according to her department.
The Health Service Executive is also committed to such a laudable principle - but only in principle, not practice.
According to the department’s Strategy 2005 - 2007, the case mix programme is being developed in partnership “and with the active assistance of” ... the Health Service Executive!
Now, in the case of the HSE, it just didn’t misspend €56 million. The money was moved to its current budget without Dáil approval, which it was obliged to get.
Finance Minister Brian Cowen had to go through the embarrassment of telling the Dáil of the maverick action of the HSE, having been informed by the Department of Health that “there may be some alterations” to the HSE’s estimated outturn. Some alteration!
It’s a pity Ms Harney can’t apply the same logic to trollies, because it is about the only way she will ever make them disappear from hospital corridors.
If Mary Harney considers that the wrongful spending of €56 million amounts to needing nothing more than an “alteration,” it’s hardly surprising that the health service is in the deplorable state it is.
After the notorious PPARS computer payroll debacle, which cost us about €150 million, she declared war on financial waste in such a manner that she was hailed as a model for other Government departments.
A model of what would now appear to be unclear after this latest cock-up by the HSE.
In future, when the HSE and the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) are at odds about the number of unfortunate patients who are languishing on trolleys, it would be safer to believe the nurses.
It’s now clear why the HSE continually believes there are more beds and fewer trolleys in the country’s hospitals. It is simply not great on figures.
In the 12 months since Ms Harney declared that she would tackle this particular problem, it seems to have got worse.
The INO has found that, on average, there were 242 patients on trolleys in hospitals every - every - day last year.
The HSE could only count 170.
I hope that if he ever comes to this country Manmohan Singh doesn’t have to go an A&E department, because his opinion of Bertie Ahern would surely change.
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