I listened to Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty on the radio yesterday talking about the numbers of children who have gone missing from state care. Well over 400 (419 according to The Story and perhaps as high as 450).
That’s a lot of missing children. Do you suppose there’s a magical island to which they’ve all been expatriated where they live, running wild and free through the heathers? Sadly not. At least they know exactly where the 24 dead children are.
And while all this goes on we come back to our old friend, Mary Harney.
How many times have we heard her say that things are not her responsibility but that of the HSE? Is it actually a body designed to make health care better and more efficient or is it simply a tool to allow Harney to deflect any criticism? The evidence seems to point to the latter. And from personal experience I know it’s an overblown, admin heavy disaster which fails, consistently, to raise standards of health care despite the best efforts of many groups who want things to improve.
Something happens, and when these somethings happen they’re usually appalling and horrific, Harney says ‘Woah! Back up there. Nothing to do with me, talk to the HSE. Talk to the Minister for Children. I’m off to splodge around New Zealand in a parade like a sideshow grotesque’.
And this happens time and time and time again. And what’s quite clear is that the welfare of people in this country, from children to people with cancer to those in hospice care, is of little concern to her. Otherwise when mistakes are made, when people are misdiagnosed, when we can’t count the number of children who have gone missing – and gone to fuck knows where and with fuck knows who – then efforts would be made to put them right.
Instead it’s about preserving political power. Let’s be clear, she is TD with no party, a minister with no mandate, and an abject and complete failure at her job. It suits FF to keep her there because they know what a shambles our health services are. If things got really bad they could say “Well, she’s not one of us, you know”.
It just makes you wonder how bad things have to get if more than 400 missing children isn’t enough.
Wasn’t he a PD at one point.
Yes but they aren’t the children of anyone who matters y’see Twenty.
I think she and others in government take the Stalinist view of these things. The death of Gately is a tragedy. The disappearance and deaths of 400 kids from the wrong side of the tracks as it were is a statistic.
And Mary knows all about statistics. Maybe there’s a box somewhere in a cupboard in the Dept of Health marked ‘ignore’, alongside the box marked ‘symphiostomies- how to break women’s pelvises to promote catholic squalor- ‘ignore’.
There’s a very big ‘ignore’ cupboard at the Dept of Health.
Was there any suggestions given as to where these children might be?
Some may have absconded but no information has ever been volunteered.
HSE was set up to prepare our ‘health service’ for privatisation. It’s the liquidator. It’s sole purpose is to reduce the state’s involvement in health care services. That’s why they’re crap at loss making services like looking after vulnerable children or providing services for people with dementia.
The only services they are actively improving is cancer care, day-case procedures and short stay inpatient care and other services which can become huge earners for private businesses like the Beacon Group. I would say a bit of forensic accounting would show connections between Harney and investors in private hospitals. I have no doubt about it.
And now the state is going to inject money into the VHI to prepare it for sale. Why can’t they sell to a company who’ll invest that cash instead of us? Because they can, that’s why. The state coffers are at the disposal of private businessmen like Dermot Desmond, John Magnier and Larry Goodman who are invested in private healthcare in Ireland.
These men hold us in contempt. We are their ATM. They won’t invest their money if they can use ours instead. They don’t give a damn about their country. It means nothing to them and they are morally bankrupt while we are financially bankrupt.
I need a lie down.
Office hammock required.
I have always found the idea of better healthcare for richer people an atrocious concept.
It is. Universal health insurance is a good idea though. The Dutch have it. Everyone must have insurance but if you’re on low income, it’s subsidised so everyone gets the same access. And there is still competition among insurers so there’s no monopoly.
And for when the world has just too many cunts in it, you can legally kill yourself.
whats the point in private health insurance if it doesnt entitle you to better healthcare? and why should someone who works hard and contributes not get better healthcare than someone who contributes nothing?
Sorry to appear naive, but are the names of the children known? And if so could there not be some attempt to trace them? Aren`t some missing person inquiries treated as murder investigations? This is potentially worse than any previous allegations of abuse. Proper people involved at the outset would prevent any smokescreen/confusion/hampering Harneyesque responses. TM, I enjoy the mainly light heartedness of your blog, but this is very very serious.
Obscene when the commerce of political debate is about dead kids – missing dead kids – like the disappeared in Chile that time.
Political point scoring now involves locating a couple of the missing smallies .
“Today from minister for children – a couple of the missing 400 found behind a bush in John of Gods – no-one told them hide and seek game finished in 2005 .”
Reminded of Ted ‘s defence “ it was resting in my account”
Unutterably obscene.
the HSE know’s full well what has happened to disappeared kids, certainly the kids from overseas. It knows where they have been taken by traffickers, it has a good idea of where they are in child labour or child prostitution in Ireland. It has records of where HSE staff have stood and watched 15 year old girls wait with their bags packed for their pimps to collect them. I’ve seen the records. There are just a lot of lazy fucks in the HSE who don’t want to work harder or better and if they genuinely reflected they’d know they were responsible for the children who have been taken from HSE care and are being routinely raped by some punter in Sligo or Galway. If you have any motivation, talent and are working in the HSE you are fucked.
She disgusts me. She never takes any responsibility for any of her failings – and she has avoided been dumped out of power for so long now I’m beginning to wonder if this is Algeria or North Korea we’re living in. Untouchable. She makes me puke.
Repeat ad nauseum – Mary Harney is the biggest spoofer this country has ever elected.
And I mean a bigger spoofer than even Charlie Haughey -0 thanks big fella*, Ray Burke – thanks Bailey Boys, , Liam Lawlor – thanks Mr Kennedy, P Flynn – thanks for the 50k for my personal use, Beverly Cheesy Grin – this is how to evade tax, Berie Ahern – I won it on the horses, it was a whip-a-around etc, etc. All of those mentioned have been grilled by lawyers in tribunals about financial issues, except Beverly Cheesy Grin who lost a court case where she sued RTE for libel – what a fucking shit standard of cunts running this shithole of a country, elected by a shit standard of cunts living in this country.
* When Harney stopped eating cake for a moment she managed an utterance which prevented Charlie Haughey possibly going to jail for his corruption. She’s a fucking disaster, everything she touches turns to shit.
She’s a fucking disaster, everything she touches turns to shit.
But you still would, wouldn’t you ?
albania, algeria- you know what i mean. Corrupt banana republics
Good article in the ft weekend mag recently which describes uber-cunt Bertie Ahern as ” the Taoiseach who presided over the alchemical prolongation of the boom and hides his shrewdnesss behind a blokeish bonhomie and mangled syntax ”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/67ae51e2-5e35-11df-8153-00144feab49a.html
bukowski, you seem to have inside knowledge of this. Any chance you could tell us more?
I remember utterings of this in the press about two or three years ago. Nobody gave a fuck about it because they were asylum seekers. The attitude was largely thanks to newspapers like the Daily Mail, Irish Independent and Evening Herald with their inflammatory headlines about asylum seekers being given free housing or benefit or being prosecuted for petty crimes.
Let her eat cake? The fat cunt has already eaten ALL the fucking cake.Now shes going to rape us all again by selling the vhi to one her buddys and make us pay for the pleasure.Its about time someone got rid of this tub o lard ,who represents no one, except her wealthy co -conspirators.
People don’t just disappear – they mightn’t be where they were before but they are somewhere.
You have to wonder the lengths the authorities go to about discovering the wherabouts of the people once they’ve absconded. Not on the scale of the Maddie McCann search – that’s for sure.
Wonder what her private healthcare lobbyist husband thinks of the whole VHI idea. He can always use a megaphone to ask her down the length of the Harney breakfast table.
I predict that the VHI will be bought by a larger international insurer like Travelers or AXA and Oliver Tatten will be one of the directors.
After a time spent restructuring the monopolistic VHI he founded a successful software company before turning to challenge the state in their protected healthcare markets with VIVAS Health.
Oliver speaks about the exponential growth of healthcare services on a global stage, Ireland’s future and the opportunities for entrepreneurs and policymakers alike in filling the serious infrastructural gaps that now prevail.
“Oliver is a vision builder and one who speaks with huge enthusiasm and optimism about a compelling future and how we can shape it”
” His critics say he is gamekeeper turned poacher, but Oliver has done more in the last 5 years to shape the direction of private healthcare in Ireland than most Ministers for Health”
True Dat
just in case anyone wanted to know,he’s just the type we want in healthcare,his only interest in your health is how healthy your wallet is.cunt.
i would like to take a yard of garden hose and beat the living fucker out of her’ then hold her down and drop whats left of the ten pints of stout i had the night before down on top of her
What I can’t understand is that the VHI is being sold and it will COST the country 300m? Surely the point of selling something is to receive money? Hopefully, I am missing something…
Harney will be hating this weather, her knickers will be stuck to her arse like glue
“i would like to take a yard of garden hose and beat the living fucker out of her’ then hold her down and drop whats left of the ten pints of stout i had the night before down on top of her”
I’ve read it about 6 times and I’m still laughing like a school kid.
Just wait until the reprivatisation of the nationalised banks comes along El Cuno.
Seriously the EBS became national property earlier today, AIB and BOI have had major govet money and the Republic is now a major shareholder in both.
But here’s the best bit. As soon as all that inconvenient debt is properly lumped at the taxpayers door some cunt in the Irish government will announce that the stake will be put up for sale.
And the cunts who are paying for the debt mountain via their taxes will all line up to buy a piece of a bank they already own.
They might make a 100 euros out of it. And lose thousands through their taxes but they won’t even think of that.
You’re not missing anything el cuno. You’re dead right. Whoever buys VHI should pay the cost of bringing it into solvency. But no. Our money will be used instead. OUR money.
But getting back to the missing kids. Remember the all out panic over the precious darlings of South County Dublin getting a dip in the sea in Dun Laoghaire? The contrast in response is blinding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGUvr-N3QbY
Holy shit, when I saw the figure “419 children gone missing”, I honestly, seriously, truthfully thought they meant since the foundation of the state.
It’s between 2002 and 2009. Talk about X-files.
how many times do you have to get raped in this country before before someone says STOP.enough is enough and i’ve said it before,we need to mobilise NOW and stop just whinging about it.everyone needs to join in the tuesday marches. we are sleepwalking our way to the gas chambers.
Harney, as usual, is talking bollix. She gets away with talking bollix because she’s asked questions by people like Miriam O’Callaghan, who likes to talk about anything but the topic, Aine Lawlor who I heard interviewing somebody on the main morning radio news station yesterday about the film Sex in the City 2. What the fuck? If I want to listen to shit like that I’ll tune into mtv. The standard of reporting and questioning from the the main media – RTE – on the major issues facing this country. is like the standard of goverenment – lazy and fucking shit.
Multi-agency checkpoints are to be set up on some of the State’s roads in an attempt to clamp down on criminal activity, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said today.
Speaking in Dublin, following a meeting with the new Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson last night, Mr Ahern indicated he was eager to take action to curtail the activities of criminal and terrorist groups.
He said the checkpoints would be manned by gardaí, members of the Revenue Commissioners, customs officials, social welfare inspectors and other groups.
“Not only does it deal people breaking the law generally but it also disrupts the movement gangs be they criminal or terrorist gangs,” he said.
The checkpoints would operate primarily in the Border areas from Donegal to Dundalk, but their focus would also stretch further south.
All done with your best interests in mind.get used to it people,this is YOUR future.
Jonjo. I totally agree on the marching thing. But I attended two Tuesday marches and they are being monopolised by the extreme left. I made contact with all the groups involved raising concerns that they were alienating the majority of people who wanted to protest.
Not Fucking One Responded to me.
Everything in this country is Shit and Corrupt & everything is the fault of successive Fianna Fail governments and the cunts that elected &
re-elected them.
Brian Cowen (Fat Bastard Cunt) is due to pay a visit to my home town today after he opens the new stretch of M7. There are cunts falling over themselves organising shit and ways of meeting him. Thank fuck I no longer live there but while people still carry on like this when these cunts come to town, they will continue to fuck the country over.
Pay no attention to opinion polls, there are thousands and thousands of uneducated cunts out there that will vote for this shower of bastards at the next election no matter what they do. I’ve seen it with my own eyes this week.
Missing Children = Children can’t vote so fuck ‘em
Cancer victims and the elderly will prob be dead before the next election so fuck them too.
jonjoward. he’s the same cunt who, when the morris report into compalints against donegal pigs was released, instead of saying ” these pigs are fucking dreadful” he went after the two tds, higgins and howlin, who blew the lid on them. He also got a FF td who was only a wet week in the dail to go after them. The FF td was obviously reading a script prepared by the Dermot Ahern – it was a load of bollix and he then had to issue an apology to howlin. Dermot Ahern is up there with his namesake as a dangerous cunt. And the culture in the department of justice makes the department of health look like a garden of roses.
There are hundred of potential crossing points on the border with Northern Ireland. If the British and Irish armies could only do periodic patrols on some of the roads how the hell are the Gardai going to do it on their own?
Looks like another excuse by Dermo to indulge himself in rambo fantasies. I suspect it might have something to do with the usual cross-border trade losing the Irish exchequer money and he’s under pressure from Lenny to stop people importing lower cost stuff without paying the duty difference to Lenny.
Other than that he’s having a Control Orders wankfest in his own mind.
Strange how the Gardai can suddenly be committed to a whole new policing initiative which has got absolutely nothing to do with the most serious crimes in the state- theft of public money by pals of his own colleagues.
IGP- ‘Instant Garda Paralysis’.
Having checkpoints is a very invasive and aggressive thing to do to.
Is gangland crime our 9/11?
Multi-agency checkpoints are to be set up on some of the State’s roads in an attempt to clamp down on criminal activity, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said today.
What a fucking waste of time, resources and money.
People will say if you’ve nothing to hide then you needn’t be concerned but you’re a suspect until they wave you on. That’s the problem with it.
It’s the same with airport security. You’re a suspected bomber until you’re putting your shoes and belt back on and heading for Costa Coffee.
Seems a bit grandstandy to me, when there are more local issues they could be focussing on.
They’re just reminding us who’s in charge in case we get all annoyedy and stuff.
@ HM – extreme left monopolising protests.
What’s the breakdown @ these Tuesday evenings ? Joe Soaps, students, um-employed, extremies, shinners, labour activists etc .
Just a general picture, please.
Sniffle.
60% SWP (some students included, mostly angry men)
10% Eirigí (Younger profile)
10% Community activists
10% Average Joes (including families)
10% Cops on duty.
Hard to know how many of the people were unemployed.
They’re just reminding us who’s in charge in case we get all annoyedy and stuff.
spot on as usual HM. Is no one paying attention,only the few bodies on this site?
was walking through town yesterday and passed that other wanker, enda kenny ,with one of his lackeys in tow.if that fucking wanker is the future we might as well give up all hope now.
People don’t read the news anymore Jonjo. They think The Evening Herald and SKY is news. They can’t identify international trends or read between the lines.
Less and less people own more and more airtime and news presses. It breeds apathy towards important issues yet people will sue their neighbour over a barking dog.
It’s exactly where they want us. They being controllers of wealth and information like Rupert Murdoch, Rothschild banking, the Vatican.
I wish I was stupid.
@ HM . Ta – Don’t know how or when the rage will happen – seriously.
Those in private jobs are keeping their heads down ( that’s me) and the public sector have the unions working for them.
The ones getting truly fucked over are the unemployed and I’m not sure if they are being mobilised by anyone or anything political.
Twenty did a thing months back re: Ireland being in the grip of a Stockholm syndrome which I thought said it well .
Doesn’t seem to matter what atrocity is carried out , we just get on with stuff. Makes me fucking angry.
I’d come up for that protest but I’d want more Joes at it first.
time for stout
typical FF voter
http://i49.tinypic.com/2w56h5l.jpg
Nah she doesn’t vote at all Itchy. But she’ll fucking well moan about everything all the same.
Brilliant, she’s standing there, fag in hand, worried about the effect of jackhammers on her unfortunate child. Where is Roanoke? Is it near Rooskey?
HM is on the money, as ever.
As far as I recall, the minister for health secured less than 3,000 first preference votes. And appalling as she is, both in terms of her ideology and her demolition of the health service, there is something even worse. No one in Fianna Fail wants the job. No one in Fianna Fail believes they could do the job better. No one in Fianna Fail is sufficiently motivated by a sense of public service to demand that she be removed from office. It says all that needs to be said about Fianna Fail.
It’s in england el cuno, probably twinned with Rooskey.
Listening to the last word with matt cooper -
Kevin Myers was born annoying. he can dish it out but can’t take it.
Kevin Myers, John Waters and Brenda Power walk into a bar. The barman say’s “get out”
Heh.
AGHGGGHHH
followed by the nasally motherfucker ryan fucking turbridy
sorry to be a pedantic cunt but this particular roanoke is actually in virginia in the US.
thank you jj
you know the way some people always let you down? e.g. Padraig Harrington bugs the shit out of me but every time I see or read interviews with him he lets me down by being a genuinely good guy.
Ryan Turbridy never lets me down.
you wished you were stupid hm. i see a lot of that round here its not that the min wage people are stupid its that they just dont give a shit they will bitch and moan about not having money all day long, but as a mate of mine did this week he earned 300 euro doing a job on the side and then him and his wife drank it all despite owing money everywhere. they dont care and when you look at what the bankers and the rest have done over the last fifteen years or so would you blame him for not giving a shit
holemaster, can’t say much but the information is out there. To a degree its true that Irish people didn’t/don’t give a damn about these kids because they were asylum seeking but I think if you see a case file and read the child’s story and see what happened to them your heart breaks, even if you are a xenophobe. And the facts are the facts. Girls as young as 14 are being trafficked into Ireland via the HSE accommodation system for child prostitution for Irish men. And the HSE is culpable, as are particular staff and management as are the ministers involved. In fact we’re all culpable for allowing this to happen.
Ugh. Yes. I’m horrified, and sickened by that, but I don’t really know what to do with it other than be horrified and sickened, in typical middle class fashion. ‘Well, I was very, very upset.’
What else? There has to be a better response than that?
get rid. she’s gotta go and pronto. bloody disgrace. yes, i ike stating the obvious…
Wow, that was some article.
Thanks itchy. I don’t normally read the FT, but yeah, that was a very informative article.
I know it’s late and I shouldn’t bother you with it but this is one of mf my only social interactions.
yamo, a friend of mine for more than 30 years called me tonight and insisted on meeting me for drinks. 7 pm til n2 a.m. was well boosy. he is a junkie and he lied to me about himself most all of the night. he is my best friend i’,m now home andi’ve got salty feeling tears running through my nose and eyes for his shit. hsi wife just texted me to say his home.i’m splashing tears on my cheap shit housefloor i’m tired from other peoples shit. sorrry. mew, me, fucking me. sweet dreams. yes, it’s alcohol and love
karoke night in keelings donabate. bring your family
i hope to fuck somebody recorded crytal castles on jools tonight
Ahahahahaha, I’m sorry itchy, I just read that as Crystal Spring and was having a moment of Existential breakdown that they could possibly be on Jools, til I realised I’d got it wrong.
Sorry about your friend – intervention time?
And why is this one of your only social interactions? Change something, hon. I mean, it’s not like you’re stuck at home with small children and no life or anything… :)
me head never again
Is on the dry your junkie friend, itchy?
“THE NEW head of the Health Service Executive is to be paid almost €100,000 more than the Government had initially planned”
(and knows nothing about healthcare)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0529/1224271393402.html?via=mr
Just like the top salary for bankers was going to be €500k
Time for a big fry up.
That was bloody great! Steak sausages, eggs, potato bread and soda farls.
I do love soda farls.
Where’s our Jeremy Paxman?!
By now our country’s hoop is so loose and elastic, another rape just gets taken without too much opposition.
People mention the Greek riots as if they should be condemned, as if standing up for the rights of the vast majority of the populace is something to be ashamed of. The only thing they did wrong was not to check if there were employees in that bank before burning it down.
ah. the fear. this is what has been written about before.. I don’t have a cheap floor but my best friend broke my heart on friday. another friend said don’t blame the man, balme the drug. I wish I had better composure. sorry.
People do that to you, Itchy. Most of the time there’s not much you can do.
New head of HSE €322,000.00 = 272,678.75 GBP
Head of NHS in UK = 259,999 GBP
Are we being screwed in the hole?