Bertie's greatest regret

[miller1910]

According to the Sindo love-in/interview with Bertie this morning, his greatest regret in politics is not having built a national stadium....

That tells us everything we need to know about this great socialist - his greatest regret is not that he's overseen a third world health care system with year long waiting lists, where people are sleeping on trollies. His greatest regret is not that we have the highest class sizes in our schools in Europe, that parents have to fund raise for falling-down schools.

No, his greatest regret is that we don't have a Caucescu stadium in a field on the edge of Dublin and that the eminently-sensible decision to re-build Lansdowne Road was a "mistake brought about by small-minded people".

Good riddance to this gob************************e,

[Fr. Hank Tree]

A stadium? What about this?

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/1031/co ... eness.html

[CookieMonster]

Even that isn't his greatest regret. His greatest regret is getting caught with his grubby sticky little fingers in the cookie jar.

Good riddance to this gob************************e,

Too bloody right.

[rockyracoon]

The Bertie bowl - I suppose that says it all. In fairness, imo, he might have also regreted sending someone else to the bank to do his businees. That, it seems, at the moment, to be the weakest link.

Cue, Frank Sinatra:

Regets, I've had a few,
too few to mention . . .

[jerryp]

If, for a change, he was to tell the truth , he would admit that his only regret is getting caught.He is from the Haughey stable which previously brought us Lawlor and Ray Burke as well. The eulogising about him in the media is stomach churning. Let all those singing his praises come back in a few weeks when he's finished with the tribunal and see if they want to revise their opinions. I would except Eoghan Harris from that exercise, he's beyond hope !

[tonys]

According to the Sindo love-in/interview with Bertie this morning, his greatest regret in politics is not having built a national stadium....

That tells us everything we need to know about this great socialist - his greatest regret is not that he's overseen a third world health care system with year long waiting lists, where people are sleeping on trollies. His greatest regret is not that we have the highest class sizes in our schools in Europe, that parents have to fund raise for falling-down schools.

No, his greatest regret is that we don't have a Caucescu stadium in a field on the edge of Dublin and that the eminently-sensible decision to re-build Lansdowne Road was a "mistake brought about by small-minded people".

Good riddance to this gob************************e,

Do you really think that any or all of those situations would be solved by the additional spend of a once off 300 million, given that for example we already spend 15,000 million per year on the health service alone.
As he also said in that interview, there were some small minded people unable to handle the concept. As always we benefit from vision and suffer from the lack of it.

The opposition to this project was purely politically motivated begrudgery, the opportunity is gone now and will not return perhaps for a generation.

[corkman2007]

Bertie's biggest regret shouldn't be over some stupid stadium, it should be over these issues:

The public services are worse, not better, than they were when Bertie became Taoiseach. Who is responsible? Why, nobody. Not the Taoiseach, who has wondered aloud why "somebody doesn't do something".
...

On the very day that Bertie announced his departure (and by implication Cowen's escape from Finance) disturbing Exchequer figures revealed that the Government is not only €600m short on its tax take, but is overspending in key departments; on the same day Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the IMF warned of a global recession; and it was also revealed that Irish pensioners had this year already lost €10bn.

Elsewhere, we know that unemployment is back on the rise; the construction industry is in crisis, inflation is soaring, the unions are threatening, competitiveness is fading.


Irish Examiner:

MORE than a year after its completion, a €5 million A&E unit in Cork remains closed because of a €1m shortfall in funding for staff.


The new unit at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) — almost four times the size of the existing A&E — requires a 50% increase in staffing numbers, but the money to fund the additional 24.5 posts is not available.

...

The failure of the HSE to open the new facility, with a number of other cutbacks in HSE South, will be debated at a meeting of HSE managers with public representatives later this month.

The meeting was requested by Mr Allen amid growing concern that patients were suffering as a result of ward closures and failure to expand services.

Cutbacks also include:

The closure last month of a 31-bed mixed medical and surgical ward at the MUH.

The closure in January of a 24-bed surgical ward at Kerry General Hospital. The ward was due to re-open in March.

The loss of a consultant surgeon post in Mallow with the knock-on effect of ending weekend emergency surgery.

Failure to use a new CAT scanner provided in 2006 to Mallow General Hospital but still unused due to the non-filling of two radiographer positions.

[tonys]

Bertie's biggest regret shouldn't be over some stupid stadium, it should be over this:

The public services are worse, not better, than they were when Bertie became Taoiseach. Who is responsible? Why, nobody. Not the Taoiseach, who has wondered aloud why "somebody doesn't do something".

Completely unsustainable comment, by any measure, the spend on these services, the number of these services, the number employed to deliver these services or the number of people using these services, they have improved greatly since 1997.

[essexboy]

Bertie's biggest regret shouldn't be over some stupid stadium, it should be over this:

The public services are worse, not better, than they were when Bertie became Taoiseach. Who is responsible? Why, nobody. Not the Taoiseach, who has wondered aloud why "somebody doesn't do something".

Completely unsustainable comment, by any measure, the spend on these services, the number of these services, the number employed to deliver these services or the number of people using these services, they have improved greatly since 1997.

"Never mind the quality, feel the width"!

What counts are outputs, not inputs, and the Health service has just swallowed up money without giving value eg scanners left idle at Dundalk and Sligo Hospitals, and Bertie defended these failures.

[Richie Nixon]

According to the Sindo love-in/interview with Bertie this morning, his greatest regret in politics is not having built a national stadium....

That tells us everything we need to know about this great socialist - his greatest regret is not that he's overseen a third world health care system with year long waiting lists, where people are sleeping on trollies. His greatest regret is not that we have the highest class sizes in our schools in Europe, that parents have to fund raise for falling-down schools.

No, his greatest regret is that we don't have a Caucescu stadium in a field on the edge of Dublin and that the eminently-sensible decision to re-build Lansdowne Road was a "mistake brought about by small-minded people".

Good riddance to this gob************************e,

Do you really think that any or all of those situations would be solved by the additional spend of a once off 300 million, given that for example we already spend 15,000 million per year on the health service alone.
As he also said in that interview, there were some small minded people unable to handle the concept. As always we benefit from vision and suffer from the lack of it.

The opposition to this project was purely politically motivated begrudgery, the opportunity is gone now and will not return perhaps for a generation.

Another stadium in Dublin wouldnt have helped our purpose. If Bertie had real vision he would have built it in Galway or Wexford. If you want to host an international championship you need a decentralised nature to the stadia. To throw up three in one area (i.e Lansdowne Road, National Stadium, Croke Park) would have, and in 2000 did see our bid for Euro 2008, laughed out of the water