Evening Herald front page reporting that Mary Harney refuses to leave junket.

[just4ever]

It makes sense to a degree.

The damage is done to her where you have people like Just4Ever (no offence) who genuinely don't understand that you can manage a department and a situation from abroad. They're not bad people, they just don't have that sort of critical thinking. Be it as a result of their own limited professional experience or whatever other reason you want to pick, a very significant portion of the population will think like that, hence the headlines and the interest here etc etc.

She's looking at it from an management POV (Which she can afford to do, as I don't think she's going to run in 2012. She doesn't have to think like a politician) which is that she can

A: Come back, effectivly waste the transit money, waste the opportunities to gain investment, annoy the NZ govt who were going to meet her for Paddies day, and the other organisations that have gone out of their way to arrange appointments with her, to do nothing except wait for a report upon her return.

B: Stay on, do what she was there to do, annoy the voters.

She's choosing to do B. Now if it were me and I was thinking of the next election, I'd probably come home. But I don't think she is.

My point is that you can't manage the situation from abroad. You can of course in an operational capacity but not in a capacity which will satify the general public's (her employers) view of her management of the situation. No government will complain about a visiting minister having to return to their home country to address a crisis in their department. Instead she decided to ignore her obligation to the country, much to the detriment of her credibility and carry on with a holiday.

[FakeViking]

Does anyone have a link to her itinerary?

[Sailor]

My point is that you can't manage the situation from abroad. You can of course in an operational capacity but not in a capacity which will satify the general public's (her employers) view of her management of the situation. No government will complain about a visiting minister having to return to their home country to address a crisis in their department. Instead she decided to ignore her obligation to the country, much to the detriment of her credibility and carry on with a holiday.

It's not her job to manage the situation - that is the role of the HSE and the hospital management.

[hiding behind a poster]

She doesn't need to travel half-way around the world to decide to have an investigation.

Its interesting how much of this thread you've spent explaining the things the Minister for Health DOESN'T have to do.

In that case, why pay her €191,000 plus extras?

[just4ever]

Does anyone have a link to her itinerary?

Mary Harney’s Itinerary in New Zealand | election.ie

[FakeViking]

Mary Harney’s Itinerary in New Zealand | election.ie

Thanks!

[Chrisco]

By teh same logic, when London was blitzed Churchill should have just passed the buck to the RAF for their failures and moved to the country?

Quite. Chamberlain didn't actually have operational control over the Norway Campaign, so why should he have resigned?

[just4ever]

It's not her job to manage the situation - that is the role of the HSE and the hospital management.

Fine, you're right. Dispand the department. Let all the department staff go. Sell the building. Sailor's right, she has no role in health management in the country.

[Sailor]

[QUOTE=hiding behind a poster;2516332]Its interesting how much of this thread you've spent explaining the things the Minister for Health DOESN'T have to do.

In that case, why pay her €191,000 plus extras?[/QUOTE]

Good question - but you don't go around looking for something for her to do when you discover how well paid she is. More normal approach would be to assess the job and pay accordingly. So, will your man be taking a paycut?

[Sailor]

Fine, you're right. Dispand the department. Let all the department staff go. Sell the building. Sailor's right, she has no role in health management in the country.

Well - I'd go along with a lot of that - but you need to distinguish between executive and non-executive functions.