A thin line between love and hate

The second day of the IMO AGM may have been dominated by Mary Harney, but she certainly didn’t seem to notice. To the Minister for Health, her session was probably just another filled time-slot — albeit a slightly more pressurised one, seeing as the two issues dominating the recent press — the new consultant posts looming and the nurses dispute — were on everyone’s lips as she arrived in Killarney.
Journalists, IMO staff, and doctors seemed to wait restlessly for Ms Harney’s arrival for most of the early afternoon, with rumours circulating constantly that she was just outside the hotel. (Which, by the way, is beautiful, and suspiciously similar to the usual spot, the Hotel Europe, just down the road).
As she arrived, and managed to escape the gaggle of journalists after promising an official press conference in half an hour’s time, things simmered down and people followed her meekly to the conference room housing her address. The Minister gave no sign she was aware that she was the main event of the day, and in fact seemed to be enjoying the fuss on her arrival.
Earlier, the IMO CEO George McNeice had given his address at the same podium, which went down a storm, and was followed by thunderous applause that rang with agreement.
“No-one can claim that our health service matches the standards we would expect of a mature developed economy,” said Mr McNeice. “Whatever its shortcomings, they cannot be laid at the door of doctors who daily struggle to overcome a system which has stagnated.”
Doctors then sat back and waited to hear what the Minister’s response would be – she had better not blame doctors for anything – but she didn’t. She spoke about change, adapting to new things and moving on from old ways – I wonder was this a mistake, with the election only months away, but I’m sure the opposition parties would agree with her theme.
Once her speech was over, the Minister smiled, said thank you, and sat down. Doctors and others who had been bad-mouthing her, her department and the entire PD party an hour earlier were smiling and generally looking satisfied. This led me to wonder what, exactly, does Deputy Harney possess that makes people suddenly like her in the space of half an hour? Some politicians are so charming that people can’t help liking them immediately, but Mary Harney is not exactly charming. Witnessing today’s frenzy, I realised that what she does is make people empathise with her job and what she is trying to do.
Her speeches generally follow a similar format: OK, she says, there are problems, but I am trying to fix them, and I am on your side. No one blames doctors. (And if we do, we don’t do it to their faces at their annual conference.) She then makes a few well placed quips and jokes (today it was one about her trepidation on learning she was invited to speak at the AGM on Friday the 13th, as well as jibes about Dr James Reilly, Fine Gael candidate for Dublin and sitting in the front row, arms crossed), praises the doctors, throws in a few personal references or two, and then it’s over. By which time, the very people who witness the disaster that is the health service first-hand are agreeing with her. Not all doctors were pleased with her of course – particularly after her comments on going ahead with advertising for new consultants next week – but the majority of the room certainly seemed to be, as the resounding applause, which matched that of the previous speaker, indicated. I’ve seen this happen at other medical conferences that the Minister spoke at, but today was the first time I saw such an interesting about-face. Maybe it was the sun.
The rest of the day passed quickly, with the general motions session in the afternoon as sparsely populated as always, yet the talk continued to be about Ms Harney. I sat near two elderly GPs in the motions session and listened to them discuss the Minister’s appearance. They proved what I had already suspected – this morning they were disappointed with her, but by late afternoon they liked her.
“She made a good case,” said one of the GPs. “And it was good of her to come down.”
“Things are in a bit of a mess, but it’s not her fault,” agreed the other, in what I thought was a good example of Irish logic.
Really, Mary Harney almost deserves to stay in the Department of Health just for her enviable powers of persuasion.
And now that she’s gone, we can all get back to criticising her in peace.