Scandals lay bare State’s vile bids to stiff the vulnerable and shines sobering light on how Ireland really works
IRELAND, where the truth is buried until brave men and women raise their heads above the parapet to reveal the amoral cesspit at the heart of the state, and the Health Service Executive in particular, the monster that beats without a heart.
We were this week treated to two more HSE scandals to add to the sorry litany of scandals over the years (Hep C, CervicalCheck, Savita Halappanavar, waiting lists, hospital overcrowding).
I could go on but I’d run out of room.
The lessons of all the outrages to afflict the citizens of Ireland have never been learned (and probably never will unless those responsible are brought kicking and screaming to the altar of justice).
Fat chance. This is Ireland. It’s not how we roll. Punishment, that’s a Protestant notion. Catholics forgive even the most heinous of crimes.
The HSE, a cradle of inefficiency, mismanagement and subterfuge. And that’s putting it mildly.
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The lawyers never like when you tell it straight. Our defamation laws protect the most powerful. But you get my drift.
The latest HSE assaults on the common good should shock, but we’ve become inured to the ineptitude and callousness of a system that continues to allow them to happen.
This week we learnt that for decades the state sidestepped its responsibilities to our most vulnerable citizens — OAPs in nursing homes and those unfortunates who can’t look after themselves and live out their days in residential care.
Some 12,000 of these hopeless souls who try to eke out an existence in psychiatric care or in residential units across the country were denied a disability maintenance payment of between €50 and €80 for decades.
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Sounds a pittance, but what disgusts about this particular affair is not the money.
What rankles is that the legal advice given to the HSE and the state recommended that the laws denying the payment were “ultra vires”, which means “illegal”, yet nothing was done.
Did they do a reverse ferret and reinstate the payment? Did they f***.
They sat on their hands and kept on with the sordid practice of non-payment for fear of an avalanche of claims that would have cost the state €700m in compensation.
Most of the victims of this practice, which Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admitted on Wednesday was wrong, were unable to defend themselves.
Many were seriously psychiatrically ill. Others had no relatives nor friends to stand up for their rights.
Leo said the state “didn’t have a leg to stand on” legally by withholding monies from the most vulnerable. Yet it did for decades. And Health Minister after Health Minister knew nothing about it.
More nuanced, but equally nauseous, was the revelation this week that many poor OAPs were charged for their care in private nursing homes.
The state claims it had no obligation to pay their bills. Which may be true, but it misses the point.
The machinery of the state — senior HSE bosses and the state’s lawyers — mobilised to ensure they would not be legally liable.
Fear of litigation coloured decisions.
The needs of our most vulnerable citizens and the common good thrown on the bonfire of financial convenience.
And that sticks in the craw.
Why do these scandals keep happening?
Well, the answer to that is simple really, there is NO accountability in the HSE and in the bureaucracy of the unelected state.
No one falls on the political sword, no one loses their job, and no one is ever prosecuted for failure.
The scandals have shone a sobering light again on how Ireland really works, in the shadows still, as it has since Independence 101 years ago, and out of the spotlight of scrutiny at all costs, lest the nefarious ways of the machinery of state be found out.
We deserve better. But don’t hold your breath that you’ll get it.
ESB PAYING FOR THEIR WRONGS
SUPPOSE it’s better than a kick in the you-know-whats, but the ESB could have done better than offer a miserly €50 for each household after admitting to wrongly charging domestic users of electricity for TWELVE whole years. We should all sue.
Way back in 2010, the Government set up a scheme to subsidise those who paid large energy bills – in other words big companies – but ordinary domestic users, like you and me, were supposed to be billed a fixed amount each billing period too as part of the scheme.
Instead, energy bosses deducted a fixed percentage, which meant we were all paying too much – and it went on for more than a decade.
Aoife MacEvilly, of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, said this week: “ESB Networks anticipates that it will result in the reduction of a domestic electricity bill in the order of €50 in total.”
Whether that’s every two months or not remains to be seen.
Suffice to say you won’t be a millionaire someday.
TANKS FOR NOTHING
THE Ukraine war is about to enter a new, bloody phase, with both sides preparing for spring offensives.
Ukraine is desperate to secure the promised German-made Leopard 2 tanks before any Russian assault, expected by many to coincide with the first anniversary of the war on February 24.
In Belgium, the CEO of a defence company OIP Land Systems said this week he has a warehouse of tanks, pictured, ready to send to Ukraine. All he requires are export permits from the Belgian authorities and the German government, not forthcoming as yet.
Time, as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week, must be made to count.
All that can be done to speed up the logistics must be done so Ukraine is ready for what will come once the warm weather of spring arrives.
DUBLIN IS RIP-OFF CAPITAL
I WAS struck this week by a tweet lamenting how our capital city is no longer a place for ordinary people.
The comment, by a prominent Dubliner, read: “I’ve always loved living in Dublin, and had immense pride in the city. Not any more. Issues faced by ordinary people, with economic figures the best in the world, it no longer serves its citizens.”
He went on: “Record homelessness, racist mobs, vulture funds, unaffordable homes . . . What’s it become?”
It sums up distinctly how many Dubs feel about their city. It is now a foreign land, expensive, full of corporate high-rise blocks and stuffed with overpriced hotels for tourists, who must be thinking to themselves: “Why on Earth did I come here? To be ripped off so royally.”
All week, several poorer suburbs have been rocked by spontaneous “protests” against asylum seekers and migrants.
The theme of the protests, a far-right trope that Ireland is full, couldn’t be farther from the truth.
All decent Dubs are horrified by the animosity towards those who come here seeking shelter from war, famine and economic hardship.
If you’re truly Irish you’ll condemn their demos without hesitation.
PEACE IS WINNING
NORTHERN Ireland has come a long way from what it was at the height of the Troubles.
A report released two weeks ago by the Policing Board detailed how PSNI officers have only discharged a shot five times in the past ten years, the most recent being an unintentional discharge in June 2022.
The other four shots were fired into the air outside Omagh police station after Tyrone won the Sam Maguire in 2021.
Which, when you think about it, is testament to the durability of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace and stability to the island 22 years ago.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems with that peace, but they are of the kind that can be solved by politics, not guns.
PUB PAIN: A CASE IN PINT
IT may be spring (February 1 heralds the end of winter in my book. If you’re a middle of March merchant, then you’re dead to me), but the cold winds are still blowing.
When it comes to the cost-of-living crisis, that is.
The greatest affront to decency is undoubtedly the increase in the price of a pint of plain.
If you’re an aficionado of the black stuff, the fact your tipple is now on average ten per cent more expensive than this time last week is enough to make you stop drinking.
Most pubs in the country have had no choice but to hike prices by up to 50c.
Across the country that now means you will have a hard job finding a pint for under a fiver.
If you live in the capital, make that six euro, a scandal if ever there was one.
Diageo, the makers of Guinness, justified the price rise by claiming soaring energy and transport costs left them with no other option.
Fair enough. Economics dictate things, of course.
But the price rise will have a detrimental effect on an Irish institution, the pub.
People simply don’t have the spare cash to pay such high prices.
The only winners will be the off-licences.
You can get four pints of Guinness for €8 in the offie. Go next door to the pub and you’ll not have change out of €20.
It’s a case of pop eating itself.
THE BABY AIRHEADS
IT’S hard being a new parent. You’re up half the night and fit to drop most of the day. Yet, you keep on going. What else can you do?
An incident at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday had me quietly chuckling.
A couple and their baby in a buggy arrived late to check-in for a Ryanair flight to Belgium.
Unfortunately, they had no ticket for the kid.
Ryanair charges €25 for the privilege of bringing a kid on your lap.
Which isn’t a lot, but instead of paying for the child’s ticket, the couple left the baby at check-in and raced off to catch their flight.
The cops were called and the couple chastised for abandoning the infant.
It’s easy to blame the parents, but a lack of sleep would tempt even the most sane of individuals into doing the maddest things.