FG confidence in Harris collapsing
Minister has ‘given up’ on reforming HSE, colleagues claim
HEALTH Minister Simon Harris’s party colleagues are losing confidence in his ability to get a handle on the ailing health service – with one claiming he appears to have ‘given up’ on reform.
Some senior ministers have expressed concern over what they claim is the Fine Gael TD’s ‘obsession with media’.
Mr Harris has been assailed by a series of crises – the latest being the revelation that more than 500,000 people are waiting for an outpatient appointment.
He has also been struggling with a high-profile emergency department trolley crisis, a recruitment crisis and a flu crisis – all of which he recently compared to ‘a perfect storm’.
The number of patients waiting on trolleys hit an all-time high of 677 in the first week of January, and there are repeated accounts of elderly and young people left languishing on trolleys and in chairs in overcrowded A&Es waiting for admission.
This week, an 80-year-old woman was on a trolley for 70 hours in University Hospital, Galway.
Politically, the minister’s ‘perfect storm’ has become a major issue for those within Fine Gael.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who was Mr Harris’s predecessor as health minister until May 2016, has backed his minister but his Cabinet colleagues are less convinced.
One senior minister said: ‘Simon’s obsession with media is unnerving; he appears to be unable to focus on anything else.’
Another said: ‘When there is a crisis or an issue, his first port of call is how will this play out with the media.’ He appears, they said, ‘to have essentially given up on the task of reform. When it comes to health he appears to be increasingly disengaged’.
A Department of Health source said: ‘He only comes to life if there is an issue that might be Twitterfriendly. When it comes to the service itself the smallest of changes takes months. Mention anything complex and his eyes glaze over.’ One minister warned: ‘I think he is sort of thinking that, like Leo, it will be a purgatory from where he can escape after two years.
‘But, at least Leo managed the place when he was there. It was a bad decision by Enda to put him in the job and an even worse one by Leo to keep him there. Confidence is collapsing. Fianna Fáil are starting to wound us on health.’ Others were more sympathetic. ‘It is not as if anyone else would fare any better,’ said one minister. However, in a politically dangerous development, regard for Mr Harris’s status is also plummeting among backbenchers.
Several TDs and senators are horrified at the possibility that he might be in charge of the forthcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment.
‘If Simon is put in charge of this, we are finished,’ said one.
TDs were equally scathing about his performance. One said: ‘He is the first minister in a decade to secure real increases in money and the service is still collapsing. It is not his fault, he simply isn’t up to
‘His obsession with media is unnerving’
the job. The HSE are big beasts, this is senior hurling and he is still a minor.’ Another TD warned: ‘He doesn’t do things for people, other ministers you can ask to “sort that for me”. Simon doesn’t, which is why he has no friends.’
One TD said: ‘He is a one-man political weather warning and the omens are not good. When Leo feels he has to spend his political credit supporting you, then you are on your own.’ A spokesman for Mr Harris did not respond to a request for a comment last night.