A&E crisis - Overdue admission a mystery

THE ‘road to Damascus’ conversion of Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney to the sheer scale of the crisis gripping A&E departments at the country’s hospitals is mind-boggling, to put it mildly.

Following years of angry protests involving nurses, doctors, patients and relatives frustrated over the dire state of Ireland’s A&E service, it defies credulity that only now is the minister finally conceding that a national emergency exists.

Where has the Tánaiste been for the past year-and-a-half? Surely, if she had visited the battle grounds which A&E departments have become, or read the letter columns of this newspaper, or listened to voters on the doorstep, then she would have realised well before now the frightening extent of the national emergency over which she presides.