Royal taxi regulator

It seems that a majority of taxi drivers are against the recent increase in fares imposed by the Taxi Regulator, Kathleen Doyle.

The matter was hotly discussed on Liveline during the week but despite numerous contacts from RTE the regulator refused to discuss the matter on air.

Ms. Doyle’s press office is as far as RTE got before being contemptuously pawned off to a public relations company. This is the modern day equivalent of asking the peasants to use the workman’s entrance.

Ms. Doyle is a public servant and therefore, in theory, should be accountable to consumers. There has been a disturbing tendency in recent times for people like Ms. Doyle to adopt a certain royal distance from the great unwashed.

When public servants adopt such arrogant attitudes consumers are entitled to form their own conclusions. Here’s how I imagine Ms. Doyle would address the general peasantry if she ever deigned to dismount from her high horse.

Dear Peasants,

I have been elevated to a position of great importance and therefore feel it is entirely inappropriate that I should deal directly with ordinary people.

I have therefore, at great expense to you, employed a public relations company to deal with all awkward questions from an impertinent media. All questions of a suitably respectful and non awkward nature will be dealt with by my underlings – eventually.

Of course, I do acknowledge and indeed, on rare occasions, feel a degree of gratitude, that my high status, large pay packet, very generous expenses and myriad other perks are all paid for out of your meagre resources.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you the very best of luck in your struggles during the coming economic depression.

I would ask you not to worry too much about my prospects as I am guaranteed regular pay rises, total job security and a very generous pension on completion of my reign.

Yours etc.

(Note to private secretary: Make sure that fellow Duffy gets a copy, it might keep him quiet)

Copy to:
Taxi Regulator
Liveline

NTPF rip off

Letter in yesterday’s Irish Times.

Madam,

The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has a budget of of €100 million in taxpayers’ money for 2008.

According to the NTPF’s latest report, some 20,000 “in-patients” were treated in 2007 at a cost of €92 million. The report does not provide precise details of the procedures performed or of their individual cost, but at least two-thirds of the procedures listed, such as endoscopy, tonsillectomy and dental extraction, would normally be carried out as day-case procedures, which are relatively inexpensive.

Some 10,000 out-patient consultations and some 2,000 MRI scans were also provided. Excluding the out-patients, the cost per in-patient treated was therefore €4,600. Four private hospitals shared €49 million of the fund.

The Mid-Western Regional Hospital complex in Limerick, which includes three hospitals – the Regional Hospital, the Regional Maternity Hospital and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital – has a budget of €195 million. In 2007, it treated 33,000 genuine in-patients, about 75 per cent of which were emergency cases, of all levels of complexity, and 19,000 day-case “in-patients”; 29,000 new out-patients were seen along with 109,000 review out-patients. Again excluding this massive out-patient activity, the cost per-inpatient treated was €3,750.

There is something radically wrong here. On the basis of these numbers and the case mix, the NTPF figures suggest a waste of, at the very minimum, €20 million.

Those who are committed to eroding our public hospital system in favour of creeping privatisation might take note.

Yours, etc,

Dr GERRY BURKE, Riverside Clinic, Steamboat Quay, Limerick.

The figures quoted in this letter are astonishing and outrageous. The NTPF was originally set up to treat seriously ill patients languishing on long waiting lists. The idea was to treat these patients outside the jurisdiction in order to relieve pressure on a creaking and inefficient health service.

But as always in Ireland the scheme has been corrupted. Here’s how it now works.

A consultant in a public hospital treating a public patient will be paid X amount for his work. If that patient is put on the NTPF list the consultant’s fee is considerably increased.

So, we can have a situation where a consultant, working in a public hospital paid for by the taxpayer, treats a patient in the morning and decides to put him on the NTPF list. The same consultant returns in the afternoon and because the patient is now on the NTPF list and therefore judged to be a private patient the consultant’s fee is multiplied.

As the above letter reveals many of the treatments are not of a serious nature and therefore should not qualify for NTPF. I suspect that the €20 million wastage mentioned is a fraction of the total cost to the long suffering taxpayer.

See here for more on this scandal.

Time for court action

Yet another report from the HSE outlining the suffering and death of patients because of bureaucratic incompetence. A delay of 14 months in cancer diagnosis had serious consequences for nine patients and resulted in the death of at least one of them. In my book this is manslaughter at minimum.

The HSE reacted in its usual sly and callous manner, releasing the report on a day when the media were focused on the historic events unfolding in America.

It’s long past time that somebody in the HSE was hauled before the courts on a charge of manslaughter.

Perfect man for the job

Distasteful as it was, I watched ‘Bertie’ the television documentary on the ex Taoiseach last night. Programmes like this are always useful in gaining insights into people like Ahern, insights that in the normal run of things are hidden by spin doctors and advisors.

For me, the most important insight from the programme was the confirmation that Ahern and his cronies deliberately set out to create a mafia in the Drumcondra area with the ultimate aim of making him Taoiseach. All Fianna Fail opposition in the area was ruthlessly wiped out. Ward bosses were established to ensure everybody knew their place and did as they were told.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Ahern and his cronies were successful; after all they were operating in a country that is itself run on mafia principles created by the corrupt Haughey in whose company Ahern learned his trade.

It is, however, always fascinating to observe journalists and other commentators ignore the fact that Ahern in nothing more than a street wise chancer who had a talent for exploiting the very low standards in Irish public life.

We are constantly told that we must wait for the Mahon Tribunal report before passing judgement on Ahern’s legacy. This, of course, is rubbish. The Carruth/sterling evidence tells us all we need to know about Ahern’s pedigree.

The facts are simple. Ahern and his secretary, Grainne Carruth, swore under oath that Ahern never dealt in sterling. Both gave their evidence in the (mistaken) belief that no bank records existed to disprove their claims.

When irrefutable evidence was produced Carruth broke down and admitted her lies. Ahern, having used every excuse in the book, was reduced to the last refuge of gangsters and drug dealers – ‘I won it on the gee gees m’lord’.

It was at this moment that Ahern should have lost all credibility; it was at this moment that he should have become a figure of contemptuous fun and an object of police investigation. Instead, he was elevated to the status of great statesman and will retain that status for so long as Ireland remains a dysfunctional society unable to face reality.

Even if Mahon finds that Ahern committed perjury it won’t matter. No action will ever be taken against him, it will make no difference to his onward march to sainthood and it is very likely that he will achieve his ultimate ambition – to be president of this banana republic when we celebrate one hundred years of inefficiency, incompetence and corruption. In that respect, he’s the perfect man for the job.

We'll be home before Christmas…

“We’ll be home before Christmas” was the optimistic prediction made by soldiers as they headed off to war in August 1914.

The term has become a popular catch phrase for describing those making overly optimistic predictions on any given situation.

The ongoing global financial meltdown, I believe, is one such case. Experts seem to believe that within one or two years things will begin to improve, I disagree.

This is the worst financial crisis in history further complicated by the fact that it comes at a time when natural resources are rapidly dwindling and the global environment is showing clear signs of irreversible damage.

It could be seen as a perfect storm that may result in a long term global depression. The Great Depression that started in 1929 lasted until the early 1940s when, grotesquely, it took mass destruction and the killing of over 50 million people to kick start the world economy.

At best, I would say we are looking at a five year global depression that could even stretch to ten years. It’s more difficult to predict whether we’ll see soldiers heading off to yet another world war promising to be home before Christmas but given the vagaries of human nature it’s not beyond possibility.

Home Choice Loan scheme – It's all clear now

I wasn’t completely clear on the motives for the Government’s new Home Choice Loan scheme for first time buyers until I watched Prime Time last night.

There are at least 50,000 newly built houses lying empty in ghost estates across the country. Most of these houses will have been built by ‘Fianna Fail friendly’ developers who now find themselves unable to repay big bank loans – Time to call in some favours.

The new scheme will, in effect, transfer responsibility for repaying these loans from rich developers to poor taxpayers. This is obvious from the conditions laid down for applicants. Only new houses are included in the scheme. Applicants must be first time buyers who have been twice refused a mortgage from a bank or building society.

Effectively, the Government is creating its very own sub prime market by giving first time buyers, whose credit rating is so risky that regular lending agencies won’t touch them with a barge pole, up to 92% mortgages in a rapidly falling market. Inevitably, many will be unable to keep up payments and taxpayers will be forced to make good the losses.

Developers’ interests looked after, bankers’ interests looked after, taxpayer’s screwed.

It’s all clear now.