Randon thoughts at year end

Random Christmas thoughts.

Next year should be a liberation for BriaLenomics.

Big challenge for FG to right the economy.

Close the fiscal deficit.

Get rid of the latest secret Act – The Credit Institutions Stabilisation Act. I notices that Fine Gael has said little about this.

Is Richard Bruton’s Good bank idea now dead because of the nationalisations of the other banks AIB/INBS/EBS/Anglo? We have nationalised their debts on the double. The second way is through NAMA. I think that this was Mad – InSANE.

I am grateful for the loyalty and work of Mary Early and Irene Artane-Hoey

I would love top massively reform the HSE and open medicine to the light. The consultants contract must be revisited. We now have the appointmen of of “clinical leads” in many specialties. Who appointed them and after what process? What are they trying to achieve and where is the road map published?
Histopathology and histopathologists must stop purporting to represent “Blood Sciences” in Pathology. This applies to the Faculty of Pathology and to hospitals.
The fees for each specialist procedure and specialty in private hospitals should be tabulated and published by the Health Insurance Industry.
Nurses and doctors whose education is subvented by the state should be obliged to work in the heath services here for three years post primary degree. The Medical Council should look again at registrations regarding the specialist and training post rules. Where is the recognition of routine work done by doctors (NCHD) in general hospitals. Most medicine is not rocket science. Otherwise the outcomes would not be great!
We need a huge investment in information technology and we need to get blood sciences and imaging in radiology operating on behalf of the whole medical community and not individual hospitals.

The public should be made aware that their councillors in the HSE Forum for Dublin and Northeast can do a good job if they are allowed to do so. The law and standard operating procedures should be altered to achieve this. The perceived ackwardness of councillors in the northeast has had the effect of forcing change in the way many problems are approached by the administrators. However, the culture of dictatorial secrecy has to be replaced at the HSE.

Reform all round is needed. This must be done in the spirit of national solidarity.

How did Ireland lose to scotland in Triple Crown match at Croke Park. Did the low crowds at the November internationals reflect the ticket price only or was it the crisis in the economy?

Good year in the League of Ireland – Rovers won for first time since 1994. The danger is that the Board will follow the other clubs into economic madness and bankrupcy.

Tipperary and Kilkenny were magnificent in September.

Thank the Fine Gael group on Dublin City Council for electing me Group Leader. I hope I gave them value for votes. Their constructive engagement with the budget, City Development Plan and China was impressive. Gerry Breen being elected major and Edie Wynne deputy mayor was a highlight for me. And Clare Byrne had a baby.

Good News – the obvious cohesion of the staff in medicine and surgery at Connolly Hospital is very gratifying. It must be the D15 air!

Luckiest night of the year – my daughter was a passenger in a car that turned over onto its roof on Feltrim Road near Swords and she crawled out a rear window uninjured. Lessons learned there.

Best people to work with – the staff at the Area Office in Northwest and at the City Managers Office on Wood Quay.