The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Interview with Dr. James Reilly of Fine Gael… October 24, 2010

…Isn’t James Reilly TD one of the more fascinating individuals in Irish politics, only elected in 2007 and by judicious choice of sides winding up as a key figure in the retention of Enda Kenny earlier this year – with more than an outside chance as Fine Gael spokesperson on Health to ultimately be Minister of Health in any upcoming coalition arrangement, whether with Labour or Fianna Fáil . Jason O’Toole has an interview with him in the Mail on Sunday which almost glancingly refers to this meteoric rise. Of course being President of the Irish Medical Organisation before his political career was no doubt a solid training.

Considering his rapid ascent to deputy leader of Fine Gael since joining Enda Kenny’s team four years ago, it’s perhaps surprising that he confesses to actually only first thinking about running for public office when he was ‘persuaded’ to contest the 2007 general election. That decision was ultimately prompted because, as a practising GP in north Co. Dublin, he was becoming disillusioned by his first-hand experiences of the rapid decline in the health service under Mary Harney. ‘The minister, who I thought was going to do the business, was not doing it. As a GP, I couldn’t do my job any more. I was seeing the situation change from where I get a patient seen the next day, to where they now sit on chairs for four days in A&E and wait years for essential treatment. In Holland, patients are seen by a consultant within four weeks, max. I haven’t visited every single health service in the EU but I haven’t visited one that’s worse.

And he figures he can do better than the present incumbent.

Dr Reilly says he would enthusiastically ‘grab it with two hands’. And even though he damningly describes our A&E units as ‘third world’, Dr Reilly is confident he can succeed where previous ministers have failed. He vows to radically shake up the health system – and says the HSE ‘without a shadow of a doubt’ will be abolished under Fine Gael. ‘There’s hard things that are going to be done and hard things are going to be said. And there’ll be blood all over the floor and some of it may be mine. And that’s the way it’s going to be,’ he declares.

And although he’s a peacemaker, he’s ready for war.

‘I’ll make it real clear: I believe in consultation, I believe in compromise and I believe in conciliation – but if all that is left is confrontation, I will not shy away from it. And woe betide those that would stand in the way of the will of the Irish people because the will of the Irish people is what we’ll be mandated to carry out. ‘We will fix the health service. We can achieve what needs to be done in five to 10 years; we’ll have it bedded in very well in five years’ time. People can judge us on this – the waiting lists will be gone and we will have free GP care in by the last year. ‘I’m prepared to take responsibility and say I’ll do it. And the buck stops with me, unlike the current minister. So, if the buck stops with me and you’re a hospital manager and you see me coming, you’ll know I mean business. Because I want it done. I’m not going to fail because you won’t do your job.’

Incidentally notice how the ‘frontline’ argument beloved of some creeps in. I’m no master strategist, but supply chains are sort of important too and the current vogue for ringfencing the former and assuming the latter are somehow optional is a little concerning.

Dr Reilly is clearly irate with Minister Harney’s shock plans to cut €1bn from vital frontline hospital services and he warns: ‘There’s no question that by doing so she is putting patients’ lives at risk.’ He insists cutbacks can be found elsewhere to make up the deficit. ‘The minister is lazy. She allows the HSE to take the lazy way out. She therefore allows them to cut the frontlines because that’s the easiest thing to do, instead of making the hard decisions. ‘Savings can be achieved from the horrendous waste within the HSE. There was €1bn alone last year in overtime. Now overtime is not a core part of the Croke Park Agreement. And one junior doctor last year got €130,000 in overtime on top of his pay. That’s not his fault, that’s the stupid rostering he was put on. ‘So, look at the €1bn in overtime. Look at the €300m that could be saved by generic drugs and if the Government tackled the price of drugs in this country. There’s a cholesterol drug down here that in the generic form costs €27 and in the North it only costs something like £1.40. So, you don’t have to go to Spain or Portugal, you only have to go up the road. There’s something radically wrong there and we need to address it. €121m in taxis! Clearly, proper logistics control would sort a lot of that out. The list goes on,’ he sighs.

Interesting too the following…

Dr Reilly says he doesn’t believe ‘it’s appropriate’ for him as a doctor to comment on Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s health. But, I suggested, for someone with cancer to hold such an important position was surely not only detrimental to the individual’s health but that the chemotherapy might also affect his thought processes. He says: ‘Well, I mean, all those things are true,’ adding that ‘some might agree with you’ when I suggest it’s surely not ideal to have someone with a life-threatening illness in charge of the country’s deteriorating purse strings during possibly the worst-ever recession. ‘In fairness to him, he’s made his own decisions and they are his decisions to make. He’s doing his job to the best of his ability as he sees it and that’s his decision. And that’s a personal and professional decision for him. In relation to the job he’s done, it’s been a catastrophe. ‘His plan for the banks has been an unmitigated disaster for this country and it’s landed us in the serious predicament we find ourselves in, where our very sovereignty is now in question, with the IMF and the ECB crawling all over the Department of Finance. You cannot say we turned a corner unless you acknowledge that we turned a corner and went straight into a ditch – and it’s a hell of a ditch.’