Minister James Reilly and Roisin Shortall at ‘breaking point’ in health care centre war
Relations between James Reilly and Roisin Shortall were at “breaking point” this weekend with senior government figures predicting a reshuffle of ministers in the strife-torn Department of Health.
Health Minister Dr Reilly has become embroiled in yet another highly embarrassing public spat with his junior counterpart — this time over primary care.
It has emerged that Dr Reilly ensured that two locations in his own Dublin North constituency were added to a HSE list of places chosen for primary care centres.
Dr Reilly has come under fire for the move after it became clear that HSE bosses and Ms Shortall did not believe the Swords and Balbriggan sites warranted priority status.
defended
Dr Reilly has strongly defended the move, adding that he would “make the decision again tomorrow” if he had to.
But it is the political ramifications of the decision — and particularly the sour relations between the Dr Reilly and junior minister Roisin Shortall — that has fuelled speculation about a reshuffle.
Speaking on the basis of anonymity, a Cabinet member told the Herald that he believes Ms Shortall — who has refused on numerous occasions to back Dr Reilly — will be moved out of the department.
“She clearly does not have the confidence in Minister Reilly. For her to refuse to back him publicly is very serious. Quite clearly there’s war going on in the department and I think Shortall will be moved out. Relations appear to everyone to be at breaking point.”
The latest spat follows Ms Shortall’s speech on the motion of confidence in James Reilly on Wednesday night — when she failed to declare support for him or even mention him once.
Dr Reilly went on to win the vote by a margin of 99 to 50.
So far, no other Cabinet members have supported Ms Shorthall’s position — if anything she has become further isolated.
When contacted by the Herald, the other junior minister in the department, Kathleen Lynch, refused to support Ms Shortall’s criticism of Dr Reilly.
“It’s a very busy department and there are very difficult challenges facing the department. When it was awash with money under Fianna Fail, the problems in the health service were not fixed. Not only do I have confidence in the Minister, but also the entire Government.”
When asked whether she shared her Labour colleague’s concerns about the primary-care decision, Ms Lynch said: “I don’t want to go there. We all have different areas of responsibility.” The latest controversy at the Department of Health involves some 30 locations for primary care centres which were sent from the HSE to the Department of Health earlier this year — after up to 200 sites nationwide were considered.
However, Dr Reilly ensured that five additional sites were added to this list, including Swords and Balbriggan.
This has been strongly criticised by the Opposition, given that the HSE itself only ranked the two sites as number 44 and 130 in terms of priority.
Dr Reilly came out in staunch defence of the move despite the major questions hanging over the decision to add the two north Dublin sites.
“I reject any idea that there was anything improper. If I had the same decision to make again tomorrow I’d make it. I have some experience in relation to primary-care GP provision,” he said.
Attempts to contact Ms Shortall were unsuccessful. However she admitted yesterday that she did not “know why” Dr Reilly had changed the list. She also refused three times to express confidence in her senior counterpart.
“I engage in a process with the HSE and the department to identify the centres and the locations we thought should have priority. Then obviously there were additional locations added to that list. I don’t want to comment on that.”
Man assaulted in Market St. Sligo during burglary named today
The 67-year-old victim has been named locally as Eugene Gillespie, a former Eircom employee and local shopkeeper.
The Deputy State Pathologist Michael Curtis is to conduct a post mortem later on the body of a man who died after an apparent assault during a break-in at his home in Sligo Town.
The man who was seriously assaulted during a burglary was found in his home on Old Market Street on Friday night.
He died in Sligo General Hospital on Saturday evening.
Gardai believe he was attacked during an aggravated burglary some time between Wednesday night and Friday night.
They have asked anyone who saw anything suspicious in the Old Market Street area during this time frame to contact them.
The post-mortem examination took place on today Sunday.
The scene remained sealed off tonight as the Garda Technical Bureau continued its investigations.
School counselling reversed after junior cert student incident
The department of Education has reversed a budget decision to cut guidance counselling supports in a school in the southeast after a Junior Cert student intent on “serious self-harm” was taken to hospital.
In the days before the incident, the 16-year-old male pupil had sought to talk to a guidance counsellor in the school, but one was not available because of budget cuts.
The department confirmed last night it allocated an additional 11 counselling hours a week to the school last Monday after a year head at the school contacted senior officials. Emails were also sent to Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn.
In one, a teacher explained how the distressed student sought a meeting through their year head with one of the school’s guidance counsellors, but “was unable to get one due to the cutback in guidance hours”.
“Unfortunately the student attempted serious self-harm over the following weekend and sent goodbye messages to a number of friends. Their prompt actions led to his hospitalisation.”
In common with all other schools, the southeast school had its allocation for guidance counselling cut as part of budget savings.
The incident appears to confirm concerns raised by the guidance counsellors last December when the cuts were imposed. At that time, the Institute of Guidance Counsellors said the cut would leave vulnerable students without the supports they needed.
More than 700 second-level schools in the State are allocated guidance counsellors under a quota system, but the budget cuts mean there is no longer a specific allocation for guidance and counselling in many schools.
In practical terms, the number of guidance hours available to students has been cut as many guidance counsellors have been instructed to return to the classroom as regular subject teachers.
Last night Gerry Flynn, institute president, said schools faced a situation where there was insufficient time to deal with students who were at risk because of cuts in the hours for counselling.
In a statement, the department said the “additional 11 concessionary hours for the 2012-2013 school year is available as a short-term support to enable essential curricular provision to continue”.
The HSE PAYS 47% MORE FOR ‘BRAND NAME’ DRUGS
A new survey has found that Ireland’s Health Service is paying one-and-a-half times more than Britain for brand name medicines.
The study carried out for the Swedish pharmaceutical sector shows that Ireland pays more than any other Northern European country for drugs that are still under patent.
The survey found that the HSE pays 47% more than Britain’s NHS for such “brand name” drugs.
Freak fireball lights up Irish skies
A massive fireball was seen right across Ireland last night which may be “one of the best ever seen” in Europe and was a “huge event”, according to Astronomy Ireland.
The trail of fragments passed across the sky at about 10.55pm with sightings reported from Dublin, to Donegal, Cork, Sligo, Carlow, Longford, Antrim and across the UK and as far as the Netherlands.
It was “very unusual to see it in multiple countries,” David Moore of Astronomy Ireland said
“I’ve never seen one fragmented like that and streaked across sky,” he said. The fireball exploded into fragments, passed below the plough and all the way to the horizon.
Mr Moore said the cause of the fireball was not yet clear. “It’s a piece of space debris, but whether it’s manmade or natural is not known,”he said.
He said it was too slow for natural debris and was going the wrong direction for manmade debris. “It’s probably a space rock that has skidded across the atmosphere”.
Meteorites will have been dropped “but whether they landed in Ireland or at sea we will have to figure out” he said.
Witnesses described a trail of seven to 12 fireballs in a straight line across the sky. No sound was to be heard either by witnesses in the city or the countryside.
Kielder Observatory in the UK last night reported a sigting of a “huge fireball” .
“Many many fragments maybe in excess of 100 pieces started green went Yellow, no sound but long obvious termination lasted 20-30 seconds,” Kielder observatory wrote in its Twitter account last night.
Mr Moore appealed for witnesses to submit a fireball report to the Astronomy Ireland website
“This will help us to triangulate the path,” he said.
Twitter and Facebook filled with reports of the strange sightings last night, with metoer trending on Twitter in Ireland.
“Spotted what looked like about 8 fireballs traveling east to west over the M1 at Santry, Dublin at 10.56pm. Amazing,” wrote one tweeter last night.
The Irish coast guard had reports from the north coast right down the east coast.
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