Fianna Fáil trips on its own doublespeak

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN


When does 800 jobs lost add up to 2,000? When are free fees for third level students a good idea and a bad one at the same time? When is a review in fact a cutback? When does one hand of government not know what the other is doing? Welcome to the continuing voyages of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in government.

Here is the story so far. The rewriting of the language of Irish politics by Fianna Fáil continues. Already this summer we have had Transport minister Seamus Brennan telling us he had "no ideological position", which is strange because what else is politics about?

Last week, Environment minister Martin Cullen gave us a new term - "overdemocratised". In between, we have listened to many ministers describing the tidal wave of economic doom that will engulf the island if we vote No to Nice and then Bertie gave us that new political term - "whingers", which basically means anyone who doesn't agree with him.

In the last week, the pace of action has sped up considerably, and Health minister Mícheál Martin, Fianna Fáil's soft focus face, found himself rewriting the political dictionary too.

Martin and his departmental officials have given us a few new terms to learn. First off was his attempts to deal with the growing fallout from the government decision last month to cut 800 health service jobs.


200 HEALTH JOBS LOST


Now if you are thinking that this doesn't square with Fianna Fáil's lavish launch last year of a new health strategy that promised a "world class health service" and at least £1 billion extra funding every year, then you are "whinging" and Bertie wants you to stop right now.

The West Health Board (WHB) was asked to cut 85 jobs from its staff. However, they found that cutting their budgets by the amount requested would mean 200 jobs being cut. The WHB have decided that 200 staff working in the clerical, administration and management areas will not have their temporary contracts renewed.

Apart from the fact that there is a glaring oversight in the real scale of job losses announced by Martin in July, there is another issue in that Martin's department does not even recognise these as job cuts. The health boards are merely "non filling" posts.

Even more bizarre is the belief in the health department that these cuts will not lead to "service reductions". Are they really saying that these 800 workers were not involved in actually providing a service? What were they doing then? Be warned, even thinking these questions could amount to "whinging". Bertie is watching.


PAYMENTS CUT


More doublespeak in the Health department came in a withdrawn instruction telling health boards to cut payments to parents of disabled children. It was the practice that parents who have to carry substantial extra care costs for disabled children would have their payment backdated to the time when diagnosis was first made. Clever accounting in the Department of Health found that a saving could be made if the payments only began when an application was received. New payment guidelines were circulated to all health boards announcing this new cut.

Now, an embarrassed minister has withdrawn the instructions, saying that there would now be a "review" of the proposal. So now cutbacks are "reviews". It sounds ok though: "I have reviewed your job, good bye."


MEDICINE COSTS


So we have "non filling reviews" from Mícheál Martin. What we don't have is any comment from the minister on a leaked report that showed Irish medicine costs are dearer than most other EU states and 26 County retail pharmacies are more profitable here than in other states. How much money could be saved from the health budget if he took action on this? Bordering on "whinging" again, sorry.


THIRD LEVEL FEES


As well as inventing new terms, Fianna Fáil has also been developing new fronts in the u-turn business. Education minister Noel Dempsey is this week's entrant.

Dempsey, speaking on the radio, said he was going to look at the effectiveness of having free fees in public sector third level colleges. Dempsey said: "If it's not helping those who are at a disadvantage from an economic point of view, then we'd obviously have to change it."

However, a government source put a more meaningful interpretation on what Dempsey really meant. The source said: "The minister knows he would be politically dead if he reintroduced fees; it's not going to happen at the moment."

Another Fianna Fáil source gave an extra spin on the fees issue. This source said the party was "never happy" with free fees as it was "not a very equitable thing to do". Funny that over the last five years of Fianna Fáil in government they did not raise the fee issue once. Oops, that could be interpreted as a whinge. Sorry Bertie.