Wasting time on the parish pump process

THE entitlement to a medical card is based on strict rules clearly outlined in the HSE’s guidelines.The granting of a card is not a political decision, nor should it be open to political interference. Yet, the Irish Mail On Sunday today reveals that 100 man hours a week are squandered in a special HSE unit specifically set up to respond to representations by politicians for cards for their constituents. The highest number of these came from Michael Healy-Rae, who has contacted the HSE an astonishing 2,341 times since the last election. And when Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was Minister for Health, he made 491 representations, more than 22 a month.

What makes this so galling is that it serves no purpose other than to gild the reputation of the politician. The decision to award a card is above politics, but making an intervention lets a TD get back to the constituent and claim to have assisted in the process. It is the ultimate example of the parish-pump politics that blights good governance in this country.

The only people who can bring an end to the charade are the politicians themselves. It is a measure of their cynicism that there is absolutely no chance they will put their hands up and admit to wasting HSE time and money and agree to refrain from making representations they know are at best pointless and at worst morally wrong.