Mary Harney/P.D.'s

Mary Harney has decided to remain as leader of of the Progressive Democrats simply because nobody else wanted the job.It is of course a great pity that a political party such as this should suffer a demise.However,its demise is the fault of Mary Harney herself.She was the person who decided that to privatise Health services in Ireland was the way to go .Of course she put in a lot of work politically over the years and the efficent way in which she abolished 'smokey' coal will be one of her lasting legacies.But Harney's grim determination to privatise Health ,despite serious objections and complaints from the public at large ,was her undoing.

She hasn't gone away ,of course,and presumably the privatisation of our Health service remains.Mary Harney in her previous ministry came up with the mantra 'shop around' when faced with the problem of rising prices.In most instances this advice was a nonsense in practical terms,for example 'shopping around' for groceries was not possible for people who did not have their own transport,or 'shopping around' for petrol in some areas was a non -runner.

The most hippocrital example of this nonsense was when we were told to 'shop around' on telecommunications.A personal example....I was being ripped-off by Eircom,I was unable to even contact a human being in that company who could help me with billing queries....so on Mary Harney's advice I 'shopped around'....and came up with ....Smart Telecom....As we all now know Eircom ,who own the land lines, were allowed to literally pull the plug on Smart.What were Mary and her civil servants doing?????.Nothing...except telling us to 'shop around '(I think the Mary Harney-appointed 'REGULATOR ',having begged O'Reilly(or whoever owned Eircom at the time) scurried off to EUROPE ,to try and get Brussels to intervene.(Good old Eircom....you are all wonderful ...wonderful...wonderful ...people ...allowing me to use the internet like this)
Guess which company I am back with.....?
Another example of the effect of ' 'shop- around- Mary's ''policy was the famous BUPA saga,where once again the poor slobs were advised to s/a...so we moved from VHI to BUPA and all was going well when suddenly it was discovered that to actually ''compete'', BUPA would have to pay their competitors to allow them to compete....

Oh I've had enough....best of luck in the future Mary....