No ‘pause’ in mistakes by the minister for unforced errors
FLOUNDERING Health Minister Stephen Donnelly tells us in a tweet t hat he’s t r yi ng to improve the system from the inside. Well now sunshine, you’re not making a great fist of that, are you? Even a Martian just in the door would know that taking charge of the Department of Health is like being asked to clear a minefied without a detector. In spite of such advance warning, since becoming minister on June 27 there’s been nothing but unforced errors, blundering, lack of due care, missteps and demonstrably greenhorn incompetence.
In August, Donnelly messed up by saying that Covid regulations meant only six people could attend an indoor concert, when in fact the number was 50 – this from a man with legal authority to boss the rest of us around.
On fears that children would be more likely to pick up the coronavirus on returning to school, the minister clumbsily downplayed concerns, saying there are risks everywhere, including playing on a trampoline.
Thing is, if a kid twists an ankle on a trampoline it doesn’t mean his granny ends up in intensive care – or worse.
Then, in the middle of September, the Government was forced to suspend work for a few hours because Donnelly had to be tested for the virus – this despite assurances that the Cabinet had been observing all social distancing requirements.
This overall image of bungling incompetence emerged even stronger this week, this time on the new CervicalCheck Tribunal set up to compensate victims of the CervicalCheck disaster.
The women affected, including campaigner Vicky Phelan, have three major objections. They want it to be non-adversarial, (which, since the stated purpose of the tribunal is to avoid the trauma of courts, seems utterly obvious); they are worried that because of the delay in setting up the tribunal, women may be caught out by the Statute of Limitations, and thirdly, they want to be able to return following awards if their health deteriorates further.
The reason for that third demand is entirely understandable but Vicky Phelan felt she needed to spell it out recently by saying: ‘When it comes back, you’re going to end up like Ruth [Morrissey], like Emma Mhic Mhathúna, like me, you are going to die. There is no cure for this.’ The human misery, disappointment and fundamental injustice that the CervicalCheck catastrophe entails is enough to alert even the most politically obtuse to the need for sensitivity. Well you can forget about that. On Friday, October 23 and again on Monday last, October 27, the CervicalCheck victims made it perfectly clear in meetings with health officials that they wanted the tribunal delayed to allow for their issues to be sorted out. As a result, on Monday the minister decided to ‘pause’ the tribunal to allow breathing space. What the women didn’t know was that the Statutory Instrument to establish the tribunal had already been signed by Mr Donnelly on October 21, six days earlier and that the tribunal had already come into being when the women were told it would be paused.
Such an egregious act of ineptitude on the part of the minister is impossible to fathom.
What did he consider would follow from his signature to a legal document stating the tribunal ‘shall come into operation’ on October 27? And how could be think he then had the authority, on that same day, to ‘pause’ the tribunal he had just set up, or to play ducks and drakes with his legal powers as a minister?
Of course he had no such authority, which is why he did a reverse ferret within hours, leaving the victims stunned and dejected.
Stephen Donnelly’s lofty ambition to improve the system from inside has, in the light of this week’s events, assumed an air of dark comedy. And nobody’s laughing.