A rebel member of the Progressive Democrats is calling on Mary Harney to resign as Health Minister. But it gets even more embarrassing for the beleaguered acting PD leader – the grassroots party activist calling for her head is also a high-profile doctor.

Dr Ruairi Hanley has described Harney’s tenure in charge of the health portfolio as an “unmitigated disaster” because, as he puts it, she is allowing incompetent clowns to run the HSE. Speaking to hotpress, the youthful Hanley said: “In my opinion many of our hospitals are basically being run by total gobshites that make Steve Staunton look like Albert Einstein. Sometimes I suspect things would be better if the FAI were running our health service instead of the HSE!”
Dr Hanley can substantiate this damning assessment from his own first-hand experience, working in the health service. Despite his relatively young age of 30 years, Dr Hanley has done time in seven different hospitals in three provinces, including a stint as an A&E Registrar and as a Psychiatry Registrar. A graduate from UCD’s Faculty of Medicine, Dr Hanley has also served in the army as a medical officer and has worked in General Medicine, Paediatrics and Gynaecology.
But why attack Minister Harney? “Basically I was working in A&E watching people suffer as a result of administrative incompetence,” Hanley told Hot Press. “She has done nothing to tackle this and has instead tried to blame doctors and nurses. She used to be a courageous politician – remember she got rid of smog in Dublin in the late ‘80s. Unfortunately, when she got into health, she completely bottled it. Harney has managed to become one of the most disliked ministers in the history of the State.”
SACK THE CLOWNS
Dr Hanley firmly believes that the crisis in the health service is down to bad management.
“HSE pen-pushers contain among their ranks some of the most incompetent people this country has ever produced. These guys squandered e160 million on a poxy computer program (PPARS), while hundreds of people lay suffering on trolleys,” says Dr Hanley. “Harney had a chance to take these clowns on when she formed the new HSE back in 2004-2005. Unfortunately, she bottled it, and guaranteed them all a job for life. We should remember when looking at senior HSE administrators that most of these guys have never professionally cared for anyone in their lives – 99% of them are not doctors, nor have they ever worked as nurses.”
He cites the following alarming statistic to backup his assessment: In 1980, Hanley insists, Ireland had 18,000 hospital beds and 6,000 health service administrators for a population of 3 million. Today, we have 12,000 hospital beds and 18,000 administrators for a population of 4 million. That’s a decrease of 6,000 beds, but a staggering increase of 12,000 administrators.
But what does Harney need to do to help rectify the A&E crisis?
“Sack the clowns! Lay off thousands of administrators and spend their salaries on sick people who need to be cared for. It is that simple,” Dr Hanley claims. “Then she needs to start listening to doctors and nurses instead of abusing them in the press. Her hostility towards the medical profession has bordered on the ridiculous. Realistically, however, that is never going to happen.”
Harney’s reappointment to the Health Department after the last general election was no surprise because no one in Fianna Fáil, reckons Dr Hanley, “would have the balls to take on health”. He argues that it is far easier to point the finger at Harney when things go wrong. “Harney is thus the ultimate political mudguard. Having said that, I think it was the wrong decision to reappoint Harney.
“I suppose the only consolation I can take from Harney’s reappointment is that the Greens didn’t get the job. Those tree huggers never had a coherent health policy in my view. For example, up until a few months before the election, there was a statement on their party website expressing hostility towards the vaccination of Irish children! They quickly reversed this position before polling day. They also have, in the past, expressed support for a load of bullshit about so-called ‘alternative medicine’ – in other words, quacks!”
ABOLISH VAT ON CONDOMS
Dr.Hanley sees the last general election as the end of the road for the PDs. Or as Dr Hanley so eloquently puts it: “The party is bollixed – end of story. The surviving party members should merge with Fianna Fáil and get it over with. Since the election they haven’t even managed to elect a new leader. Harney is seemingly ‘acting’ in the job – which she no longer wants. The damage has been too severe and the party has too many arse lickers for us to have any future. It has taken me a few months to realise this.”
Not surprisingly, it has been suggested by a senior party member that it would probably be for the best if Dr Hanley resigned from the PDs. “I am regarded by some within the party as a traitor for not brown-nosing Harney and telling her that she was doing a great job,” he says. “The party basically has adopted a policy of ignoring me and hoping I would just shut up and go away. Eventually, a senior party figure sent me an email lecturing me on ‘party loyalty’ and told me that I should have ‘done the honourable thing and resigned’. To be honest I would have – only I knew that by staying in I was probably pissing them off even more!”
Dr Hanley is almost as scathing about the priorities of young people as he is about the PDs. Still, he believes that the HSE should reduce the cost of prophylactics to help encourage safe sex. “I suppose the one big thing the HSE could do is reduce the price on condoms. Certainly abolishing any VAT on them would be a good start,” he states. “However, when you think about it, many people who crib about the price of condoms are all too willing to spend ten times as much on fags and booze! The trouble is that so many of our generation continue to practice risky, unprotected sex. There is a condom machine on the wall of every pub toilet in Ireland! Every sexually active young person should be carrying them – end of story.”b