Emigrants should get an apology from minister

APPARENTLY Health Minister Mary Harney, among other activities on her 15-day trip to New Zealand, is meeting members of the Irish community there.

Hopefully, the many exiled recently-qualified Irish physiotherapists there will be invited to meet her.

It would be good for her to hear how they have been forced to go there to get work because she cancelled sanctioned physiotherapy posts in the Irish health service, preferring to employ “managers”.

Will she apologise to these young people so far from home who would like to return, but not to unemployment?

Unlikely. Minister Harney doesn’t do apologies or accountability.

Incidentally, I believe Tallaght hospital is particularly short of physiotherapists.

The cost of her trip to New Zealand, with her husband and entourage, would surely cover at least the cost of employing one of the exiled Irish physios in our health service for a year.

Enid O’Dowd

Moyne Road

Ranelagh

Dublin 6