A&E 'national emergency' has Opposition pulses racing

With the Minister for Health declaring a "national emergency" in hospital A&Es, there was only one issue for discussion on Leaders' Questions. Opposition excitement was palpable, and Joe Higgins must have been more excited than most, writes Frank McNally.

The PDs had always been ideologically opposed to nationalising anything. News that they were taking the A&E emergency into public ownership seemed a breakthrough for socialism.

Like Aer Lingus, the health crisis is part of what we are. It has been built up under successive governments, through good times and bad, and the Opposition is heavily dependent on it. As Enda Kenny reminded us, he and others had raised the subject at least 24 times in the past two years.

"We meet on a day of national emergency," he agreed with the Tánaiste. His question was: "when did the penny drop?"

The FG man suggested it was bad opinion poll ratings in a pre-election year that tipped the balance. And perhaps it was a coincidence, but there was an unusually large turn-out yesterday on the Government benches. Another 40 TDs or so, and they'd have had to be accommodated on trolleys.

It was as if a combination of the winter canvassing bug and the chill of an approaching election had caused backbenchers to come down suddenly with the idea that this was an issue they had to be seen to be concerned about.

The Taoiseach said the new approach to A&E was a response to demands for a "greater sense of urgency". However it only added to the Opposition's sanctimoniousness about how long it had taken Government to come around.

On this subject, the FG and Labour hecklers sounded like a Mass congregation doing the responsorial psalm.

Joint-celebrants Kenny and Rabbitte would lead off with something like: "it has finally dawned on this Government after nine years."

And before you could say "response", Jim O'Keeffe would chime in: "nine long years."

The feeling of being in church grew when Mr Rabbitte suggested that the problems of both PD Ministers were now causing amusement among FF backbenchers. Instinctively, we scanned the backbenchers, who had all suddenly stopped smiling. Instead they just stared at the Labour leader with a mixture of innocence and solemnity, like the Vienna Boys' Choir at a funeral.

Joe Higgins didn't get a word in until Taoiseach's Questions, and since the issues here had been tabled before the nationalisation of the health emergency, Mr Higgins had to make do with joining Bertie's crusade against mobile phone roaming charges.

He was clearly encouraged by the Government's new direction, especially when the Taoiseach referred to "profiteering" by phone companies. "I've never succeeded in getting him to use that terminology about our home-grown speculators," said Joe, still hopeful.

Whereupon Bertie scotched his hopes of a joint socialist front against speculation. A ban on roaming charges would be good news "for those hard-working Irish people who own properties all over Europe", he quipped.