Health U-turn - Failure of leadership to blame

It would be wrong to blame the Government’s crass handling of the controversy over savage health cuts solely on ministerial ineptitude.

This matter goes much deeper and must be attributed to a chronic failure of leadership on the part of Taoiseach Enda Kenny. If he had been firmly in control of his government, there would be no need for its humiliating U-turn on cuts to personal assistants for disabled people, because the outrageous proposal should never have been put on the table in the first place.

Nor would the Fine Gael–Labour coalition be in the firing line over equally unacceptable cuts to home care and home help packages, proposals that should also be reversed. It appears this Government has conveniently forgotten its election pledge to protect the needy.