Kealan Flynn reports that the latest 1,100-page tome from the Comptroller & Auditor General offers little assurance that the HSE’s vast property estate and budget is always well managed This year’s trilogy from public spending watchdog, the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG), provides a salutary reminder of just how far the country’s fortunes have fallen. [...]
Mulranny GP Dr Jerry Cowley could send a political dynasty crashing to the ground and cost a high-flying junior minister his Dáil seat, writes Kealan Flynn The Labour Party continues to consolidate its stellar performance nationally, even catching falling stars from the now-defunct Progressive Democrats. However, only twice in its history has Labour won a [...]
Kealan Flynn writes that the Taoiseach could and should have used his Ard Fheis speech as an honest, truthful State of the Nation address. Brian Cowen’s speech to the party faithful at the recent Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis should have been his ‘Urbi et Orbi’ moment. In the end, he connected with neither. Here’s the [...]
Bertie Ahern’s governments were famous for an approach to politics and public administration that could best be described as leadership by weather-vane. But in everyday political terms, it suited the time and suited the people, or many of them at any rate. For the medium and long term, however, it was always a lousy approach. [...]
It has come to something when a highly successful political machine threatens to seize up completely in the face of an entirely predictable backlash from a Budget decision to end the automatic entitlement of people over 70 to a full medical card. Panic has gripped the Government backbenches and it threatens to destroy Brian Cowen’s [...]
Kealan Flynn says the recent ‘Hickey Case’ clarifies that ministerial responsibility exists, and that the judgment will only delay the new pricing regime for prescription drugs, not derail it. Although many pharmacies have taken some comfort from the recent High Court judgment in the action by the Hickey Group of companies against the Health Service [...]
Kealan Flynn takes a look at the report of the Pricing Body on the new fee structure for community pharmacies and writes that all sides should be fairly satisfied with the result. The report of the Pricing Body on a new fee structure for community pharmacies has attracted surprisingly little attention in the silly season, [...]
Kealan Flynn writes that as the era of cutbacks and efficiencies loom, the public sector needs to match the private sector in terms of productivity. However bad things might be looking on the economic front, at least we’re not back to the 1980s. Wherever else we may be headed, it’s definitely not there. Back then, [...]
Kealan Flynn says that the risks we encounter when entrusting sensitive data, such as medical records, to external agencies and to the State is the price we pay for convenience. Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and signatory to the Declaration of Independence (which was published on this day, 4 July, in 1776), [...]
Kealan Flynn writes that pharmacies can provide clinical services as part of a drive to put the focus on prevention and push services into the community. The issue of a new community pharmacy contract, which has fallen below the radar recently, is likely to resurface in the near future as the process for setting a [...]
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