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WHEN HE WAS appointed Minister for Health in July, Leo Varadkar noted that Angola – the infamous nickname given to the Department of Health – is now the fastest growing economy in Africa.
“So if you can turn Angola around, I’m sure someone can turn around health,” Varadkar said confidently outside Leinster House on a balmy Friday evening.
There’s no actual record of Brian Cowen ever having said the Department of Health was like Angola – full of unexploded land mines – but the simile has stuck and become almost an excuse for the failures of each minister that has followed the former Fianna Fáil taoiseach.
One of those was James Reilly – who had big ideas and grand plans – but found himself dealing with land mine after land mine during his three years as Health Minister.
How could the Fine Gael deputy leader even begin to think about abolishing the HSE and implementing a system of universal health insurance when he had all sorts of problems to contend with in the day-to-day running of his department?
There was the primary care centres – admittedly a scandal all of his own doing – and the resignation of a junior minister, drug prices, consultants’ pay, abortion and other various legacy issues and of course the budget overruns caused by constant pressure on health services across the country.
The reform plan originally set out in 2011 was to have universal health insurance in place by 2019 – some way through the hypothetical second term of this government. With so many imponderables between now and then was it realistic to say that such a system could be put in place.
Yesterday, Joan Burton pointed out that it took the Dutch – whose model Ireland is apparently basing its proposed UHI system – ten years to get their house in order.
Her view clearly tallies with that of the new incumbent in Hawkins House.
Leo Varadkar made a notable intervention yesterday and dominated the news cycle by insisting that UHI within the next five years is “too ambitious”.
This is not a u-turn on Reilly’s policy but a ‘slow down’. While Reilly was all about reform, Varadkar’s agenda is all about realism and managing expectations. The policy remains the same – for now – but the implementation of it will be different.
This saves face for Reilly but underlines the extent to which he talked a good game but found himself unable to play it. Varadkar has been a month in the job but already the buzz word around his tenure is ‘realism’.
Before yesterday he noted the difficulties facing the dozens of health professionals examining the possibility of granting medical cards to people on the grounds of medical condition. He cautioned that such plans could prove to be unworkable and result in nearly everyone qualifying for a card.
Now in addition to the slowdown on UHI and dampening expectations on medical cards he has also ruled out immediately abolishing the Health Service Executive. This is despite the government saying in 2012 that the controversial HSE would cease to exist this year.
Again this isn’t a u-turn but a slow down. The reform agenda has been replaced with the realism agenda.
There will be plenty more of this. Why? Because above all else while Reilly and Varadkar are both doctors-turned -politicians the latter is definitely the more savvy political operator of the two.
One need only read and listen to his speech at the MacGill Summer School last month to know that Varadkar’s has ambitions beyond Health – to lead his party and the country in the years to come.
To do so he must avoid any fatal land mines at Health and that means being realistic about what he can achieve between now and the next election.
Ireland’s foreign policy is to import the entire world.
@common sense: 2050 were easily a minority. Lefties will come at you for saying this, calling you all sort of names, but they will never say you’re wrong. Look at the trajectory of the decline of the share in population of ethnic Irish. Down and down and down year on year.
@Cole Palmer: I say you’re wrong. So I call on you to back up your prediction of being outnumbered by 2050 – what exactly is your starting point? what are your assumptions about the future? Highlight the variables? Any risks to your forecast that you might want to highlight. I look forward to your response
@Cole Palmer: You’re wrong!
@Kevin Kerr:” Irish could be minority ethnic group here by 2050 – professor
Ireland’s native population could be in a minority by the middle of this century”
That was an Irish Times headline in 2006, when the % of immigrants in Ireland was a lot lower. Now, I fully expect you to spin that into some shixx that sounds good in your own head, seeing as you’re a fan of young male migrants.
@Finian McG: ah yes, a prediction based on unpublished UK research which states that people of Chinese origin will be the largest group. Nearly 20 years later, let me know how this prediction is going
@Kevin Kerr: did you miss the ’2050′ bit you thick eejit?
@Finian McG: no, dopey, my point is that, 20 years into this 44 year prediction, how has the mix changed? Are ethnic Irish on track to become a minority by 2050? No they’re not. There are 60,000 Chinese nationals living in Ireland – 87% of our population is either Irish (77%) or other white (10%)
@Kevin Kerr: we could have 400000 Ukrainians next year
@Kevin Kerr: I never said white, I said ethnic Irish. Our share of the population is dropping year on year. Check the consensus over the past 2 decades. It is a FACT that immigrants of East Asia and Africa breathe at a far higher rate than we do. Are you going to deny this now? The majority of our immigrants are from East Asia and Africa. Therefore if immigration continues the way it is, we will be a minority by the absolute maximum 2050. As soon as you lefties give up on debating this non-debate, you will say ‘so what ?’. I’ve seen it over and over. If you don’t see that as a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you, I give up. You will then go and contradict yourself saying Palestinians should have a right to there own land, which they certainly should.
@Kevin Kerr: ‘How has it changed?’ Are you being serious? According to CSO.ie, 150,000 immigrants came in 2024. That is 3% of the population. I said if immigration continues the way it does, so 150,000 a year until 2050 is 26 x 150,000, which equals 3,900,000. We are not reaching the 2.1 birthdate needed to PRESERVE our population size. So our share of the population will actually decline from 3.85 million. So 3,900,000 immigrants (not including children they have) is higher than our 77% share which will, according to our birthdate, decline from 3,850,000. Just like Japan, who’s Japanese population continues to drop every year from a lower than 2.1 birthrate per woman. Since 2008, Japans population has being decreasing every year. Can’t wait for your reply.
@Cole Palmer: Plus, we had 50,000 immigrants year ending April 2004, we had 89,000 year ending April 2022, we had 141,000 year ending April 2023, 150,000 year ending April 2024. I wonder what the figures will be in April of 2025? I would bet my house that’s its higher than 150,000. In 5 years I would bet my house it will be higher than 200,000…….
@Cole Palmer: so you have picked the year with the record number of immigrants to Ireland and assumed that this will continue until 2050. And of course, you haven’t factored in emigration to give an accurate net migration number. And of course, the emigration and immigration numbers are a mix of ethnic Irish people, and those who are not. So, in summary, your analysis is so full of holes that it makes no sense
@Cole Palmer: and yes, of course I accept that the proportion of “indigenous Irish” has dropped. It is the rate of future drop that I dispute. Sure, even in the UK, where people have been emigrating to since the 1950’s, “white British” make up 76% of the England and Wales population. You’re deluded
@Kevin Kerr: I chose 2024, because it is literally the year we’re in. I didn’t ‘choose the year with highest immigration level’. April, 2025 is on track to be even higher. 10s of thousands of Palestinians will be coming here very soon after they’re forced to evacuate from the atrocity Israel is committing. They know that Irish will mostly accept them because we go around waving their flag. They will want to coke here and nobody will stop them, as they have ‘the right to seek international protection’ anywhere. Palestinians though have a history of being very dangerous wherever they go. They launched a coup on Jordan’s monarchy, they attacked the Lebanon Christian front after Lebanon gave them refuge in 1948, effectively taking over Lebanon which was once majority Christian. Now 70% Muslim.
@Cole Palmer: it was majority Christian in 1975
@Cole Palmer: generally speaking, net inward migration will reflect economic activity, not asylum seeker numbers. So if our economy is booming, workers will come – if it isn’t, they won’t. So to assume that this 150k number will not only be maintained, but will increase over the next 26 years makes no sense. You clearly have no idea how population demographics work
We are tiny open country dependent on foreign investment. By all means work away in the background but we should not be taking unilateral decisions that will damage our economy. Ask yourself, how much extra tax are you willing to pay so we can take a stand over some conflict that has been going on for decades and will continue regardless of Irelands position on the matter. We are full of our own self importance.
@The next small thing: We even have pro Hamas politicians going up for election.
@thomas molloy: lads we need brits again to help us with that’s iner issues…
@A W: Say what?
@thomas molloy: No no we don’t. Why spread lies?
@Ger Whelan: Yes we do.
@Alex: which politician running has been “pro hamas”. I’ve never seen hamas mentioned by any of them in their election manifestos.
When it comes to global matters Ireland is as helpless as a plastic duck bobbing in an ocean .
@Jim Ryan: Ireland’s third-level education system is churning out graduates for US tech and pharma multinationals for years. At this stage we should be asking why Ireland doesn’t have it’s own thriving indigenous tech and pharma industries. It would make us a lot more independent and less prone to whoever happens in US politics. We need to invest in Innovation.
@Finian McG: *whatever happens*
@Jim Ryan: We seem to want to endlessly meddle but without any means of self defence. It’s an interesting approach.
@Finian McG: stay under stone buddies…
@Derick R M: lord help us with historical bs and no actions…
@Finian McG: All your blabbering is just a big lie. You never worked for any of those companies and it shows in your uneducated comments. Keep yourself on welfare.
When it comes to defending our own waters we seem to have to depend on the Bantry Fishermen.what is all this chest puffing Unifil troops in Leabanon.,its an utter joke.!!!!!
@Elizabeth Doyle: unifil makes EU news , protecting Irish waters won’t. We sold the sea to save the farmers
@Elizabeth Doyle: What did the Bantry fishermen do to defend our waters?
Bad opinion, vast majority of people couldn’t care less about foreign policy when it comes down to it. Highly unadvisable for a party to centre it’s campaign on Foreign Policy rather than issues people actually care about.
It’s pretty simple. We need a party which has an explicitly pro-West foreign policy. One which is strongly pro-Ukraine, pro-Israel, anti-China and anti-Iran. One which has the hunger to join NATO and one which supports abolishing neutrality and increasing military spending to 3% of our GDP. Unfortunately, every party in Ireland seems to be bone-headed on foreign policy. Either they are pro-Russia, pro-Hamas or both. Every party wants to suck up to China and every party seems to be obsessed with neutrality. What a joke! Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Fein and all the other small left-wing parties have terrible foreign policy positions.
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