Who sits down and watches an Ard Fheis ?
Ehmā¦me?
I watched Mary Louās speech.
Doesnāt matter what SF and everyone else says, the two lads could stand up on Tuesday and do like Skinner for two hours. Stick a fork in the election, itās done.
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No he lays out the chairs for others to sit down
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The biggest problem to any government is the absolute shit show of a civil service and planning authorities which are totally unfit for purpose and have not moved on in forty years because they have no incentive or want to. No difference who is in government the level of incompetence will be the exact same.
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465k per unit
āThe original plan for the āproof of conceptā programme was to construct 500 units at a cost of ā¬200,000 each by February 2023, just eight months after the proposal was approved by the governmentā
Time to lift the lid on the OPW.
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Youād have some lads on here convinced that the state should be building houses themselves 
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Modular building companies get it wrong over and over.
Timely.
Thereās Gary Gannon on The Tonight Show talking more shite - disagree with everything the government does but donāt offer much in the way of alternatives.
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In a nutshell, thatās not too far from being accurate. The average minister is of average intelligence and average ability and has waay above average pay and perks. Hence, the average minister does what the average person would do in such circumstances, which is anything and everything to protect said pay and perks.
Anything else is largely coincidental.
I met a minister last week who was cunning looking but appears(ed) to be completely ineffectual other than in promoting good PR opportunity (for themselves). It was so obvious that the whole charade was just an empire build with few measurable metrics that, well, enuff said.
The civil service appears powerless to monitor or audit ministerial handouts, in much the same way that there hasnāt been a health minister in living memory prepared to stand up to the consultants. Were I minister for health, my first act would be to ban any and all private work in public hospitals.
āBut but weāll get way better pay in south Dakota or Alice Springsā
āWell thereās the door, good luckā
Stony silence as nobody leaves.
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Eh, Donnelly has basically done this. There appears to be nothing he can do about current contracts but any new contracts bar private work in public hospitals. I got lambasted there a few months ago for saying he appears to have become a competent minister who has made a couple of real changes that will have long term positive effect.
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O donavan has to go
Eh, no he hasnāt.
They are the government. They can put an immediate ban on private patients on public lists. They havenāt because there are significant vested interests about, but they could.
I should say that it wasnāt him I met anyway. Something different completely.
iād have 2 guesses for that
I doubt they can. The government canāt do anything. The older consultants have employment contracts. They canāt be unilaterally changed. They could go to the courts and have them upheld.
Donnelly has introduced a new contract taking private treatment out of public facilities. The consultants in Ireland are giving out shit about it. Funny enough a consultant friend of mine is just moved back from the UK and canāt believe how much money heās being offered and with the opportunity to do private work in his own time off site.
You Enda Kennyd that very well.
Government can legislate.
The state owns the hospitals and can do with them whatever they wish. As things stand there are consultants who have been subsidised to the tune of high six figures or more during their training now being paid both an hourly rate and a massive extra for putting private cases on public lists. The public waiting list gets longer. More folk are forced to go private and on and on.
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