Excuses an admission of failure

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin avoids the issue when he blames the current hospital overcrowding crisis on the freezing weather.

Politically, it is an admission of the ongoing failure of this and successive governments to resolve a problem which has arisen every year for over a decade.

A more likely cause of the crisis may lie in Government cutbacks resulting in wholesale cancellation of health board contracts with nursing homes under the ironically-named “winter initiative”.