Harney and health: if her game is up, why ask the opposition to play ball?

I WAS stunned by your complete volte face on the ongoing cancer controversy and the policies of Mary Harney, illustrated by your editorial (November 29).

Less than a week earlier (November 23), in another editorial, you denounced Harney, telling her the game was “absolutely and utterly up” and “it’s time you were gone”.

On November 29, however, far from the game being up, you insist that the failed Dáil motion of no confidence in the Health Minister “should be seen as a beginning”.

Whereas on November 23 you told Harney “the buck stops with you”, six days later you tell us the problems in the health service are in fact the fault of all political parties who over 30 years have “contributed to the mess”.

You then endorse the proposition that it is somehow incumbent on the opposition to provide cross-party support to Harney.

You yourself said on November 23 that “there comes a time when to persist with a discredited system is no longer an option”, and yet you now call for the opposition to support her efforts to allow this discredited system to continue!

Why should the opposition parties endorse the failed policies of Harney in an effort to fix problems in a discredited system which she set up and which they sternly opposed in the first place?

In the days after the general election, Harney bragged to the opposition that her policies had emerged from the election “without a dent and without damage”.

If this were true, why is she now pleading with Fine Gael and Labour to bail her out? Shame on you for buying into this shameless piece of Government spin and deflection. It took John Gormley six months to perform an about-face on Harney’s policies, but it seems to have taken you just six days.

Barry Walsh

96 Brooklawn

Clontarf

Dublin 3