Time up for Coughlan and Harney

DEPUTY Leo Varadkar is right about Tánaiste Mary Coughlan. I too had an opportunity to attend a function she spoke at in London.

She did not understand the topic she was speaking about and read a prepared script in a monotone, disinterested voice. She then answered a few questions with the meaningless double-speak she is so fond of: we are where we are and going forward. Not an ounce of substance.

While the Taoiseach spends weeks navel-gazing about how best to balance the crony vested interests of his party, thousands more people lose their jobs, give up hope of finding one and thousands of small businesses cling on by their fingernails.

Brian Cowen seems completely incapable of bringing any sense of urgency to any issue.

Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly (Irish Examiner, March 10) appears to be the only senior ranking public official with the honesty to say it as she sees it — again. She identifies the sea-change in attitude required before Ireland can fix its broken civil society. With perfect timing her comments are followed by yet another astounding failure by Health Minister Mary Harney’s department which resulted in another person dying.

People are not deluding themselves that replacing ministers with others from the same cesspit of cronyism that created all these problems will result in any solutions. But there has to be a glimmer of hope that new faces might at least bring some sense of urgency given how little time they have to make their mark before they face the electorate.

Ireland is so chronically broken, those of us who worry about elderly parents or siblings struggling to juggle all the pressures placed on them, as well as our own prospects, simply don’t have the luxury of worrying about the feelings of someone like Mary Coughlan. She is not fit for purpose and the sooner she and the other deadwood go, the sooner this Government can be replaced.

Jack Lynch must be turning in his grave to think he is responsible for giving Mary Harney her big break into politics. She too should fall on her sword.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London