Heart Beat:I had hoped that some of my friends might see their way to giving me a dig out in the coming year. It's not that I want it for anything in particular, but a few nice meals wouldn't come amiss, and the Highest Authority tells me I need some new shirts, Maurice Neligan.
Mind you, most of my friends are a tight lot and do not let the Communion money go lightly. Besides there's not much I can give them in return. I can't appoint them to anything.
There's a bit in Emma Lazarus's poem inscribed on the plinth of the Statue of Liberty that goes "Give your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free."
This came to mind the other day, as there was a huddled mass on the Rock Road. This consisted of about 10 chaps huddled together and as far as the eye could judge, not apparently doing anything. Mind you, in fairness, it was raining and they were engaged in the serious business of the perpetual road works on the Rock Road.
I declare an interest immediately. I live on this road and my blood pressure and coronary arteries are tested on a daily basis by this incomprehensible shambles. For over a year now it has been excavated, repaired, re-piped, etc. The water has been cut off, reconnected and cut off again and generally the citizens treated as if their inconvenience was a matter of scant regard.
Refuse collections and recycling collections are totally screwed up. Our little cul de sac has a harmless little game of "guess the bin day". It is great fun. It has also made street cleaning impossible and so this major thoroughfare is littered with debris of every imaginable kind.
The end result was inevitable, literally unceasing gridlock. Gallons of fuel expended and the poor old globe warmed even further. Other roads from south Dublin were in turn overwhelmed by motorists fleeing from this madness. I am talking here about ordinary motorists, not criminals. People who want to drive their car from A to B on their own business. People who naively think that in return for their taxes, on fuel, on cars and in general, that the State would facilitate the necessary travel; people who now know that the State doesn't give a damn.
Two final points on this topic: firstly, no work was done on this project at nights or weekends despite this being one of the busiest roads in the country; secondly, work now appears to be suspended to facilitate Operation Freeflow.
Glue flows more freely. We all have our traffic war stories to tell from all around the country. Why do we put up with it? PS There doesn't seem to be a forwarding address for the huddled mass.
So one aspiration is that the road will become passable again sometime soon. A second aspiration is that Bupa will stay. Anybody who reads this column knows my feelings about the current state of the health service. Against all the odds I have the pious hope that 2007 might bring new ideas and new faces to this beleaguered service. The insurance debacle beggars belief.
Competition, seemingly, is just a word, nothing to believe in. No company could ever compete with the VHI monopoly, given so called "risk equalisation". Somebody might be able to live with community rating, dubious concept that it is, but no company could live with handing over its profit to a competitor.
In time Bupa's client base will age, as will that of Vivas, VHI will acquire new younger clients and the market will adjust. Meantime, the newer companies have to meet the statutory levels of insurance reserves, incredibly the VHI does not, until 2012.
Mind you, the VHI reserves were not helped by being plundered by Government as a short- term expedient. Once again, it was neither VHI money nor Government money, but the subscribers' money; once again we did nothing.
What have we now? A monopoly health insurer and scads of new private hospitals fuelled by tax breaks. This is an intolerable situation, particularly for the patients who are deprived of the most basic right, that of choice. What ever happened the Competition Authority, or was that only to chase lawyers and doctors?
I would like 2007 above all to be remembered as the year in which we collectively rediscovered the word value. It has for some years little meaning in this country. Value for money was a concept that decreed that what you got for your outlay was clearly worth it. We all understood that. It doesn't apply any more. If you doubt this, just look at the housing market.
Prices three and four times the real value of the property are tolerated by us just to get a roof over our heads. Governments are supposed to protect the people and not let such shameless exploitation occur. In all of this we are the losers. Guess who gains? Let me not be too cynical, it's not all bad news. You might get a job sweeping the tent.
Let's make a statement in 2007 that we want better health and education services, that we want better roads and housing, that we want value for money and above all that we want accountability and responsibility. Let us have an end to squander mania. Let us have value.
Honore de Balzac wrote "L'avarice commence ou le pauvrate cesse" or "Greed begins where poverty ends". Not here it doesn't, Honore, in this island of saints and scholars they live comfortably side by side.
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon.