Dr Reilly should just go

THE best thing Dr James Reilly could do for his country now would be to go. The longer he insists on staying in office the greater will the damage be not alone to his country but also to the Government, to Fine Gael and, yes, to Labour too and to himself.
He has shown himself to be a liability. His appointment as Minister for Health some 18 months ago was welcomed in many quarters. As a doctor and a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation, it was believed he would understand better than anybody else on Enda Kenny’s front bench what the problems were in the Department of Health and he would be the best to solve them.
On the contrary. The health service continues to be a mess and if Reilly stays in office, this most vital area of Government is likely to be in an even bigger mess. For that reason alone, he should go now before he does any more damage.
Of course, there are far more reasons why Reilly should go now than his failure to sort out the many issues that have dogged the health services here for decades.
The one issue that stands out is his selection of two towns in his own constituency as primary-care centres and his failure to provide any evidence he was not up to the old stroke type of politics that Fine Gael consistently condemned before coming into office.
But there are other problems with Dr Reilly. He has failed to control the Health Service Executive (HSE) budget, which is facing overruns of €500m this year. Then there are questions about his own personal finances and his failure to meet court demands.
The list of problems he has failed to solve relating to his personal, professional and political life goes on and on. He should at least rid himself of his political problems by resigning from his ministry and devoting himself to solving his personal and professional ones.
If he cannot go of his own volition then Taoiseach Enda Kenny should make his mind up for him and relieve him of office. To put it more bluntly, Kenny should sack him.
This Government lost a lot of credibility during its first week in office because of all the broken promises. We were told a new dawn was breaking for politics in Ireland; there was going to be an end to all the croneyism and corruption associated with Fianna Fáil.
We were promised that the ordinary people of this country should not have to pay for all the gambling losses incurred by banks, developers and their friends in politics. The most needy and vulnerable in Irish society would be protected, while those who were guilty of bringing this country to its knees would walk the plank.
So the people came out in huge numbers to vote for anybody but Fianna Fáil. They gave Fine Gael and Labour their biggest majority ever so that they could clear up the mess without imposing any extra burdens on people who were unable to look after themselves.
The dogs in the street know what happened to those promises. Disabled people and all those who depend on home help services are the people who have been hardest hit by Government cutbacks.
They, unlike farmers or trade unionists, are unable to fight their cause. They are the softest targets so they are the hardest hit.
If Enda Kenny wants to restore some element of credibility to this government he will start by giving the boot to Dr Reilly. If Eamon Gilmore wants to put some pride back into the cause of Labour, he will demand that Kenny sack Reilly.
But those things are not going to happen. Kenny owes his office today to people like James Reilly and Phil Hogan who rallied to his cause over two years ago when other prominent front bench members of Fine Gael wanted to get rid of him.
Eamon Gilmore has already failed to support his own party colleague Róisín Shortall who was forced to resign because of Reilly´s stroke politics. The longer Reilly remains in office, the less credibility this Government will have. In the long term, both Kenny and Gilmore should have more to gain by consigning Reilly to the back benches now.
They might have thought, although I doubt this, that Reilly might have good and sound medical reasons for choosing Balbriggan and Swords in his constituency as centres for primary care. However, Reilly failed to convince anyone that by adding those two centres along with a few others in Roscommon and Kilkenny, he was doing so for other than political considerations.
We acknowledge there is nothing unusual about that and we know this was the sort of politics that Fianna Fáil were experts at. Ministers are expected to look after their own constituencies first.
The difference this time, however, was that people were promised this kind of politics was over and that it went out with Fianna Fáil.
The reality is that nothing has changed. That is what has angered so many people so much over the past few weeks.
Róisín Shortall did us all a great favour by resigning. She showed us that stroke politics was still alive and well without Fianna Fáil. If she had continued in the job and said nothing in public, there would not have been so much exposure of Reilly´s actions.
She showed that while people like herself are in the Dáil, there is still hope for the body politic.
In the meantime, Dr Reilly would do us a great favour if he did the decent thing. For God´s sake,
go now.