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AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Fine Gael election ad was raised in the Dáil today as Micheál Martin lashed the coalition and Health Minister Leo Varadkar over the health crisis.
The Fianna Fáil leader mistakenly referred to the above leaflet, where Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny pledged to end the “scandal of patients on trollies”, as being from the last general election campaign.
In fact, it was a 2007 general election campaign ad where Kenny and Fine Gael promised all of this if elected to government:
(They weren’t in the end as Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fáil secured a third term)
Raising the leaflet at Leaders’ Questions today, Martin, a former health minister, said that the hospital trolley crisis had gotten worse in recent months. Latest figures show that 385 patients were waiting on trolleys across the country yesterday.
Martin said leaked emails from Leo Varadkar demonstrated the “appalling cynicism” from the government in relation to the management of the health service.
Kenny said he did not accept this and claimed that there has been a budget overrun in the health service for the last 30 years.
Of Varadkar’s email, warning that “heads will have to roll” over the ongoing crisis, Kenny said:
It’s a warning from the Minister for Health, where he’s not content to have a situation where year-after-year you have a budget agreed and year-after-year it’s never met.
But Martin said accountability should be with ministers, not civil servants, and got progressively angrier during his response.
He said the “deliberate falsifying of the health budget” and the €680 million overrun last year demonstrated “the dishonesty at the heart of your government’s approach to health”.
The opposition leader said that when all else fails the government was looking to save its own “political hide” by “doing a Martin Callinan on it” and sacking a civil servant – a reference to the controversial circumstances surrounding the departure of the Garda Commissioner last year.
Kenny hit back saying Martin was “the champion of false anger”, was “foundering in desperation” and had “no vision for where his party should be, and where his country should be”.
Then, he concluded with this:
http://vine.co/v/eQKbIQ5n33j
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You see, Hugh. If you were a journalist you’d get off your hole and walk into the first A&E near you and you’d talk to the paramedics. You’d take notes of the predicament they are in and then you’d ring up Leo or bring him in to the Journal offices and put those questions to him directly.
I’ll give you one. I was in an ambulance two weeks ago and when the paramedics dropped me off they had to wait until I was finished with the stretcher/bed. They didn’t have a second one so they actually had to stand around waiting in the hospital before thy could go back out on the road again as I was lying on the damn stretcher unable to move. . This was Cork University Hospital. So, the next person that needed an ambulance had to wait for one, in fact they had to wait for an ambulance to travel 56 miles from Bantry to Cork.
Now, next time you have Leo in the Journal offices for a little chat, how about you ask him a real question instead of using it as a photo op and handing him a Journal mug and a cuddly toy. It’s embarrassing how you are conducting these interviews. In fact, it’s a disgrace.
It’s beyond frustrating at this stage Journal. You’s are the one who’s employ this propaganda machine . It’s sickening the contempt he shows for 80 year olds on trolleys for days just to keep alligence to his favourite party. Shame on yous. These are real people in these situations.
Also fair play Sgt. Pepper. Spot on.
Great speech, Leo Varadkar take note, http://news.sky.com/story/1341399/mps-sob-at-keep-your-mitts-off-my-nhs-speech
Hear, hear, Sgt Pepper.
It’s a bit pathetic now what comes from government past and present. It’s pathetic that the best either can say to each other is , god you are doing a shameful job and the other one goes but not as bad as you. Both shameful and their supporters can do nothing but say but sure that other crowd didn’t do anything . resign if you can’t do the job and stop blaming the other.
@ Sgt. Pepper. Most modern “news” sites like these don’t employee journalists, just glorified bloggers. You’d be naive to think otherwise.
Well said Mr Pepper .
Get well soon Sarge.
Well said Sgt Pepper and wishing you a speedy recovery.
@Sgt…that my friend wins post if the year.
Leaders questions and Edna doesn’t answer any. My mistake, I forgot he’s not a leader.
He got elected. You didn’t.
well done Tom, great argument . . . .
not an achievement when the previous government drove us into recession…
..and the current said they would guide us out Alice. Not clatterf*ck us at every opportunity.
Martino they followed the programme set out by FF and the troika but hey don’t let little thing’s like the truth stop you.
Sure there all full of horse manure …. Everyone one them ….
Enda , Gerry, Martin …promise everything to get into power
My daughter spent 25 hours on a trolley this weekend at UHL before she even saw a doctor. This is the level progress that has been made.
FG AND LABOUR carried on with ff policy so they are all the same SELL OUTS THE LOT OF THEM.
He did bring in a national screwing programme
I never got some… Oh wait, it’s that kinda screwing. ;-)
Patients on trolleys? try patients on chairs mate. I was in Beaumont last night for 12 hours in a+e. Old and young packed together slumped exhausted in chairs, the lucky ones on trolleys. God help us whoever he is…
There’s 428 people on trolleys today and only in Ireland would you get charged €813 per night for a chair or a trolley.
And the €813 will pay for the three people doing reception duties, the lad who will find your file, who will pass it to the nurse at the counter who will then place it on a trolley . Another nurse will then pass this file to the doctor and so on and so on . For every hard working nurse there are 3/4 fools doing the work of one person
From the heading on the clip, Kenny doesn’t do responses, but he does do lies, corruption and cronyism!
What the feck did Martin do when Health minister…..
Gave us a smoke free workplace!
Not because he was worried a out your health though, it was because he was worried about possible future litigation under their obligations for the Protection of Employees.
Larry credit where credit is due. He has enough failures to focus on
Sure isn’t that what you say at election time. And there must be one coming cause I’m hearing the same tripe out of them this time round. Will people ever learn!
FF raising this is like a teen giving out to his mum for not cleaning up his wanking tissues fast enough.
Lots more to come.
Martin is hardly the person to be throwing jibes, it’s like Hitler accusing Stalin of genocide.
If he’s not trying to tell a joke he’s stealing money out of our back pockets
voting in the next election will be easy- anyone but FF FG LAB ….. surely the independents can’t do any worse
Sadly if Michael Martin & Fianna Fail hadn’t bankrupted the country we are not in a position to properly judge.
Kenny unless you missed his stunning appearance at the banking enquiry proved he would have been as incompetent in the same circumstances.
Baz – it’s been a very bad day for your Rightwing extremes – now boil the kettle and make yourself a hot whiskey – it will make you feel better – No more Red Thumbs tonight Baz – it’s not good for your peace of mind – The game is up for FG / Lab. & FF , Baz !!!
ECB and the U.S. AIG did have a big share in that…
all of them should be ashamed. wipe them out in GE, vote all independents ,not x party, and small anti austerity parties.
Patients on trolleys? Try patients on chairs mate. I was in Beaumont a+e there. Old and young packed together slumped exhausted and cold on chairs, the lucky ones on trolleys. The clock is ticking…
Liars…
I have been waiting four years to see a consultant who comes to out local outpatient clinic rather than having to do a 245km roundtrip to Dublin. I received a letter in January from the Waiting list department “we would like to reassure you that the time you have already waited will still stand and you will not be placed to the back of the waiting list.” Two weeks ago I phone the consultant’s secretary to see where I am on the list, no reply, left two messages and I am still waiting on a call from her. Today I call the waiting list department who sent the letter in January and to be told that I have been taking off the waiting list. They were to get back to me too and could be waiting. I am fuming with this health care system. I have a long term illness and need to be seen on a regular basis with a consultant regarding medication, etc. How many more people on waiting lists have been taking off like I have and don’t know it. Leo get your house in order please.
It’s easy to promise the earth, moon and stars and swear you’re the one that’s going to change things…. Then you get into power and it’s like…. shite….. This is actually not just a matter of shuffling round a few beds, throwing a few quid around and shpeel. I honestly don’t think God Almighty (or who/whatever you believe in) could sort out the mess that is the HSE. The whole thing needs a complete overhaul. Can you ask people to stop being sick? No. More hospitals need to be built. There’s the general hospital in Mullingar for example. Massive wing of it completely empty since it was built in the 80/90s. Have they started to fill it with beds and staff yet?
Gangsters.
Yeah 2007 And then a huge global recession hit, credit crunch and bank collapse happened.
If FF couldn’t end the scandal of patients on trollies with tax money to spare. I don’t know how FG can be critiqued for being unable to do so when faced with a budget crisis.
Problem is people like Hugh in journal don’t care because they are probably told by Kenny go easy on us & also because they like most journalists write shite & get high pay & they probably get seen in likes of the beacon hospital . It’s a two teer country . Sickening
Your a worst fool if you believe anything these people say, ‘except maybe when they complain about needing a mouth wash, after confessing to each other that they have puked all over the nation. Each and everyone of them are frauds, con men and incorrigible liars. If they were not successful politicians; selling political fraud, they’d be successful criminals, whose time in mountjoy jail is pending. As it is there political shenanigans have not registered the worst of them as criminals. But there will come a time in the not to distant future when they will be branded like Charlie; having subscribed to a political system that systemically pillaged the nations wealth ever since the foundation of the State. For decade after decade Fianna Fail and Fine Gael with the blessings of the Catholic Church have sold the wealth of this country to the highest American bidder.
I will put them on the floor instead.Damn peasants.
So it is the same thing as they are doing today them, electioneering?
By putting them in coffins instead? Is that the answer?
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