Greens have given health to Harney

The Green Party has totally surrendered control of health policy to Health Minister Mary Harney in the revised Programme for Government.
That is the claim of Labour Party health spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan. “We do not know if Minister Harney was directly involved in the negotiations for the Revised Programme, but her stamp is very evident in the health section.”

The Revised Programme was a commitment to more of the same Mary Harney policies that have given us a two-tier health system that is expensive and inefficient, she said.
“It is also clear from the language used that the targeting of the smaller hospitals for downgrading or closure will continue,” she added.
Deputy O’Sullivan said the Greens were claiming as a victory the commitment to ‘proceed with the current programme of co-location, limited to already committed projects under the existing project contractual agreements’.
“This simply reflects the current economic reality as there was no prospect of the other projects going ahead.”
She added it was very disappointing the Greens did not insist on the restoration of the cervical cancer vaccination programme.