HEART BEAT:Hopes that the Budget would look after the little folk are long obsolete
I WISH the Minister had not evoked patriotism in his Budget introduction. It has all sorts of connotations and covers multitudes of sterling qualities and best aspirations.
It is also, as Dr Johnson points out in his writings, used as a cloak for duplicity and self service that is not in the national interest. It may be in party interests, but that is another matter and one that dangerously presupposes that we know best and that what we tell you is right for everybody.
It is this context that his aphorism "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" was coined.
I do not for one moment imply that the Minister is such. Clearly he is not. I merely point out that that it is a dangerous concept to introduce in a milieu that has been quite recently populated by some who might well deserve the epithet.
I would like to think that patriotism is about more than fair hills, flowing rivers and the "soul" of a nation - that the concept has a relevance to our time not mediated by blood spilled and people scattered.
It is just a word if it does not address the weal of the people and concern for their welfare and dignity. It's about living the ideal, not just talking about it.
I am always bemused by the yearly ceremonies at Bodenstown ostensibly to honour and commemorate Wolfe Tone but often used to express points that have little to do with his philosophy, undeveloped as it was.
The most recent occasion was a case in point. Many people before our previous taoiseach worked towards the principles of peace and respect for one another's traditions on this island. It would not be appropriate to rewrite history to their exclusion. Such revisionism might even be unpatriotic.
I am digressing. The Minister also told us that in introducing his Budget that his late father Brian Lenihan (Snr) would have been anxious that he look after the little folk. That would have been typical of the man and sincerely held and believed. The Minister may well have thought that in this Budget he lived up to this adjunct - but I beg to differ, and the reaction throughout the State confirms my view.
Whether he realises it or not, he has joined a pantheon of budgetary anti-heroes. There was Ernest Blythe, with the shilling off the old-age pension, then John Bruton and children's shoes and now yourself, undoubtedly primum inter pares, deservedly topping the leaderboard with what is probably the greatest political blunder in the history of the State.
The removal of the automatic entitlement of those over 70 to a medical card was ill-judged. It was mean and callous. It has created worry - indeed consternation - not only in the group concerned and their relatives but among those in whose direction Father Time rolls remorselessly.
It brings us back to the workhouse mentality of the means test. Furthermore, we are told that this odious task is to be undertaken by the HSE, who will do it speedily and humanely. That'll be a first. No wonder they weren't culled in the Budget; they had work to do and aren't they the boys for it, bristling with caring compassion!
On Budget Day, news broke that Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, was diverting patients from its AE department to Dundalk, Navan and Cavan, all of which are hospitals with well-publicised difficulties of their own.
In Drogheda 38 patients were on trolleys awaiting admission. There were 22 patients in beds, medically discharged, with nowhere to go. Where have you heard all this before? The answer is everywhere, every day.
The peripheral hospitals are being run down deliberately, but the units to replace them have not been built and even the "centres of excellence" that do exist are stressed, overcrowded and have not the bed capacity to deal with further influx from the hospitals being clumsily decommissioned.
This is the situation in the northeast, a microcosm of the service everywhere. The outlying hospitals are restricting surgery, cancelling out patients, closing wards and shutting theatres because, according to the HSE, "hospitals in Louth and Meath were, despite efforts to contain costs, operating above their available budget and this overspend had to be made up by the end of the year''.
Never mind the patients, these boys don't do human suffering, yet they are the people who the Minister for Trolleys tells us will interpret the new rules humanely and with compassion. She tells us that this money is needed to implement the cancer strategy.
How about the hips, hearts, brains, lungs and everything else? How about the piles, Minister? How about an integrated strategy to do the best for everyone?
How about putting aside the grandiose ideas of the times of plenty and making do with what we have? It's not ideal, but in these times it is honestly all we can do.
I haven't even got to the 1 per cent levy and the endless boasts of yesteryear that you took x per cent out of the tax net altogether. You've just put them back, Minister, and more along with them.
What was it you said - let's all be patriotic?
• Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon