where is Mary Harney?

[TimBuckII]

Got it in one. She is allegedly helping Enterprise Ireland secure jobs.

I too wonder how many actual jobs will emerge from her trip.

Depends how much she spends on hair and make up for the trip.

ooh and some new clothes.

[Pauli]

But if he does, he loses her vote. She is holding all the good cards.

This government is falling apart anyway. Would she vote against FF? Highly unlikely. She has been a de facto FF Minister since 1997 in any case. One of the reasons for the PDs demise is that under Harney, it became indistinguishable from FF. Same moral standards (none) same ethical code (none) same commitment to self-interest (total) etc.

[FakeViking]

Ms Harney's continuing on her New Zealand junket during a very serious crisis is a display of pure arrogance. Hopefully some journos out there will catch her touring vineyards while her people are suffering at the other side of the planet.

[DCon]

Ms Harney's continuing on her New Zealand junket during a very serious crisis is a display of pure arrogance. Hopefully some journos out there will catch her touring vineyards while her people are suffering at the other side of the planet.

Would it be safe to let her onto a vineyard??

[Baron von Biffo]

Ms Harney's continuing on her New Zealand junket during a very serious crisis is a display of pure arrogance.

Any time there's a crisis and Harney's somewhere else we're doing well.

[just4ever]

Harney is clearly an independent member of government and does not answer to Cowen.

Harney is a government minister, ALL government ministers answer to the Taoiseach.

[RichardDeClare]

Considering that she is always away when there are these disasters and that she does like to travel how about we make her Minister for foreign Affairs, and get a real Minister for Health

[powderfinger]

Harney has Cowen's confidence.
This is laughable.
Given that she was informed by the incumbent CEO of Tallaght Hospital of the X-ray crisis on Dec 15th.Her failure to ascertain through questioning any quantitative numerator is incompetence in the extreme.
That Tallaght Hospital provides a critical pillar in the healthcare needs of the Minister's constituents is a secondary concern.

That her junket to New Zealand proceeds without consideration ,is an insult.

[just4ever]

considering that she is always away when there are these disasters and that she does like to travel how about we make her minister for foreign affairs, and get a real minister for health

are you out of you mind????????!!!???!??!??!??????!???!???!??!???!?
The thought of that blithering idiot of an obese contemptable slug being our face to the rest of the world!!!! We might as well put up big big signs pointing to the mouths of the shannon and the liffey saying please insert invasion here!

[laidback]

Just wondering if the Minister's no doubt packed schedule will include a meeting with the many recently qualified IRISH physiotherapists who now work in New Zealand - not because as her colleague Calamity Coughlan would say they want a bit of craic and sun - but because Harney ABOLISHED sanctioned posts for physiotherapists, and this after the government in 2002 opened a new training school for physiotherapy at the University of Limerick.

Harney said in a letter to a contact of mine complaining about not being able to get a job in the HSE as a junior physio that she had 'set at a committee of all the stakeholders to look into this multi layed problem..'

You really couldn't make this up.

Met a severely handicapped man recently who contacted his local HSE office about getting physiotherapy to be told there would a YEAR's wait to get an appointment.

This when her policy is community care teams to free up hospital beds for those who really need them!