A&E hell, stalled kids hospital & Metro fail – don’t mind election promises because real truth is you’re on your own
WELCOME to the land of Make-Believe, ruled by political pygmies who promise the sun, moon and stars and are incapable of delivering much, except more promises.
Four years of government fantasy and feck all has been achieved in the real world.
The Health Service is still a basket case, blundering from one crisis to the next, sticking plasters on gaping wounds. Hospital A&E departments are still packed to the rafters. Patients continue to die needlessly. It’s a dysfunctional mess.
Yet, there was the man in charge, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly the other night promising an extra 3,000 hospital beds by, wait for it... 2031. When we’ll all be safely dead.
What planet does he inhabit? Unbelievable stuff.
At the same time Donnelly was pulling rabbits from his bottomless hat, the builders of the National Children's Hospital admitted their €2.2billion facility won’t be ready for the scheduled grand opening this October.
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Quelle surprise. Nobody is shocked. Because that’s how Ireland works. It doesn’t work.
Donnelly has promised so much now, he’s like the boy who cried wolf. Everyone has stopped listening. He’s a busted flush.
In fairness to him, the HSE, where all the real problems lie, is unreformable. It’s a monolith of inefficiency. Has been for decades.
Bloated with mediocrity that can’t be gotten rid off and unable to attract nurses and doctors of calibre because they’ve all left Ireland, exasperated, to work in Dubai or Canada.
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Grand plans - but no action
The HSE, remember, gets a THIRD of the entire national budget (€23.5billion) in one of the richest countries in the world, and serves up a health service that is effectively third world.
You’d get better health care in Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Our government loves a grand plan, a vision of the fantastical future. The bowels of Leinster House are filled with folder upon folder of glossy proposals that have never - or will never - see the light of day.
Take one example of the inefficiency of government and the institutions of the state. We’re in the middle of a climate catastrophe.
Metro gathering dust
We have legal obligations to drastically cut our carbon emissions by 51 per cent by 2030 and we haven’t a rat’s chance of achieving that target.
One crucial area in the battle to reduce carbon emissions is the promotion of public transport.
Despite the urgency, NOT ONE plan to build proper public transport infrastructure anywhere in Ireland has been even started.
The Metro - a more than 20-year government promise - has been gathering dust on the desks of planning officials in An Bord Pleanala for two years and is still more than a decade away from being realised.
Failed promises
No decision yet on when shovels will be even put in the ground. We’ve been plamásed for years by government, with failed promises.
It’ll be built by 2007, turned into 2015, turned into 2022, turned into 2027, turned into 2035 (at the earliest).
It’s one shagging line, 20km long. How in God’s name does it take so long to build?
That’s just one of the litany of failed promises in the arena of public transport.
No decision made
Dart+, the vital expansion of the capital’s suburban commuter rail network, has been with An Bord Pleanala for the last two years too.
No decision made yet. None immediately forthcoming. All the while, long-suffering commuters endure a system suited to the 1920s, not a modern first-world economy.
'It’ll be built by 2023' has turned into 'maybe by 2029'. If any of the Dart+ routes are operational by the time I retire in 11 years I’ll cut my leg off with a rusty saw.
It’s election time, a time when politicians delve deep into their promise buckets to cod you into believing things will finally get done with them in charge.
You're on your own
Don’t believe any of them. Just get on with your life as best you can.
Because, truth be told, you’re on your own.
Politicians do damn all to make your life better or easier. Not because they don’t want to, they do, they are just incapable of it, because the system in which they operate is badly broken.
And until the system - the planning system for big infrastructure projects, especially - is overthrown, all politicians will be able to give you are promises and glossy brochures, and little else.
GAZA WAR MUST END IN RAFAH
THE war in Gaza will grind on mercilessly until the end of the year it seems.
Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said on Wednesday that he expected Israel’s military operations in Gaza to continue until the end of the year, at the very least.
His grim prediction speaks to the real intentions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli forces are currently laying siege to Rafah in the south of the Gaza strip, at great cost to civilians packed into the area with nowhere else to go.
It was thought that once the “Rafah operation” had concluded, Israel would sue for peace and the war would be brought to an end.
That was the hope, not just of the Palestinian people, but the western world too.
America has continued to support Israel because Rafah appeared to be the final action of the eight-month-long war.
But Netanyahu, increasingly isolated, has different ideas, it would appear.
He is intent on crushing Hamas and seems hell-bent on achieving what many military analysts say is impossible.
His forces can kill all the Hamas militants, but it will never eradicate the ideology that drives it.
For every Hamas militant killed, ten more will take their place. For every Palestinian civilian killed, so burrows deeper the hatred of Israel, rational or not.
If the war continues beyond the taking of Rafah, Netanyahu will become a pariah, pursued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes until his final breath.
REPURPOSE DYING DUBLIN'S OFFICES
TAKE a stroll around any of our big cities, the capital especially, and you’ll be greeted by dozens of EMPTY office blocks. And we’re in the middle of a huge housing crisis!
The pandemic put paid to the grand plans to populate large swathes of our cities with office buildings.
They built them, but can’t find tenants to populate them, because the vast majority of office workers, eh, work from home.
Dublin is dying on its feet because of all the empty office space and the fact nobody can afford to live in the few flats that are available.
The Government – in conjunction with the owners of the big office blocks – should devise a plan to repurpose them as affordable apartments.
Create homes and make the city for people again.
DE NIRO TAKES ON TRUMP
WHEN Robert De Niro speaks, you sit up and listen.
The Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas legend is angry about the possible fate of America under a second Trump presidency.
So he took to a makeshift pulpit set up by the Biden campaign outside the criminal courts in Manhattan to vent his spleen.
And like all De Niro’s movie characters, he didn’t mince his words.
The venue for his diatribe was carefully chosen. Inside the court building, the jury in Trump’s porn star hush-money trial had just retired to consider its verdict.
And De Niro let fly. He excoriated Trump, telling the world: “I don’t mean to scare you. No, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you. If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss your freedoms that we all take for granted goodbye.”
He went on: “And elections? Forget about it. That’s over. That’s done. If he gets in. I’ll tell you right now, he will never leave.”
Asked by reporters whether Trump should go to jail if convicted in the hush money trial, De Niro shot back: “Absolutely, I do.”
Nearby Trump’s supporters jeered and mocked De Niro.
Not a wise thing. The movie star roared right back at them: “We’re trying to be gentlemen. You are gangsters, you are gangsters.”
He added: “Screaming and yelling and intimidating, you’re not going to intimidate, that’s what Trump does, to try to intimidate. We’re gonna fight back.”
All that was missing in the whole drama was Joe Pesci with his mama’s knife.
SNOOZED ON BOOZE
POLITICIANS do one thing very well, and that is kick the can down the road.
Our alcohol licensing laws are hopelessly out of date, and no longer fit for purpose.
The government has promised repeatedly to liberalise the sale of alcohol, so that pubs can stay open until 12.30am, seven days a week, and clubbers can enjoy a tipple as late as 5.30am if they so desire.
But guess what? Despite all the promises to help the night-time economy, Justice Minister Helen McEntee has torpedoed the plans, telling reporters on Wednesday: “What I hope to do is bring forward some of those measures in the near future.”
Yeah, in the future, which means NEVER.
KIM PONG-UN
NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un forces his people to collect their own s**t, on pain of being sent to a gulag.
Now we know why.
The pint-sized lunatic uses the amassed stink to fill hot air balloons which are then flown over South Korea before exploding, releasing the foul contents on those below.
LOVE WHY-LAND
IT’S that time of year when candyfloss takes over our TV and inane celeb wannabes flirt with each other and play pathetic games in the sun.
Yes, Love Island, hosted by Maya Jama, is back.
And God help anyone who stumbles upon this televisual spectacle and emerges with their marbles and self-respect afterwards.
Love Island’s sole purpose is to empty your mind of all thought, forever.
