The essence of public debate is to find ways to make better decisions. Is that so threatening? John Crown claims that our political decision makers act as if it is.


When the Health Minister toured US cancer centres on the famous 'Superbowl Trip', she was accompanied by two PR executives -- but no cancer experts. Many public service spin doctors bring strange qualifications to their well-paid jobs; qualifications that suggest who they knew was more important than what they knew. It will be suggested that they play a necessary role in fostering communication between the various agencies and the public, but the truth is different, and in truth somewhat more alarming. Not only is the Government misusing this money at a time when frontline services are under threat, but it is spending it against the public interest.

The primary role of the public service PR agent is not to advance communication, but is rather to manage the public's perception of the agent's paymaster. Top officials will generally only appear in carefully controlled environments. Public debates with informed commentators whose opinions are at variance with the official line are always avoided.

John Crown is a doctor. He will be in some people's minds an unusual doctor -because he has turned down a huge payrise offered to him by the HSE for reasons of principle.

He believes that health services are badly managed. He believes that in part this is because of a failure to take personal responsiblity, and a failure to discuss policy choices in an open rational way.

In today's Sunday Independent he gives us some new specific insights into how the people who are paid to govern us stop at nothing to avoid critical discussion of policy. Nothing new in that? Well the details are new to me at least and you might be surprised at how deep this goes. And at how complicit media has become in shielding the responsible ones from scrutiny.

As some readers may remember, I was once removed from a Late Late Show panel at the eleventh hour after it had been suggested by an official that the panel was unbalanced. It should be noted that the minister herself and other officials had been invited to take part but declined. Cancer czar Tom Keane withdrew from another Late Late when he discovered that he would face critics. I was invited to debate Brendan Drumm on Primetime. It never happened. In the last year I have shared platforms with three ministers, all of whom insisted on speaking first and leaving before hearing the dissenting opinions.

What are they afraid of? The essence of public debate is to find ways to make better decisions. Is that so threatening?

Link to story

I could be wrong

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One of the worst problems with spin is that ministers start to believe it. It is also a huge waste of money.

But i would also agree with another John Crown point when he stated on vincent browne that there is a problem with the calibre of our politicians and he believed it was due to the electoral system - multiseat pr stv. People get elected who's greatest talent is getting elected. He compared obama's cabinet to ours.

surely the price for pr is 51 million euro!!!!!

HSE spent ?51m on spin doctors | Irish Examiner

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Maurice Nelligan..May 2009
We do not wait happily or expectantly. It is a grim wait. In the words of Edmund Burke, “there is however a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue”. We are fast approaching that point.

Is the irony of all this lost on you?

A celebrity doctor who constantly moans about the health service in a trashy sunday gossip mags that are read by millions of people, and then he wonders why the Government spend money on PR?

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What do you call irony? He is doing it on his own time and at his own expense. Deal with his points. By attacking him instead you are (ironically) boosting his argument.

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He calls the HSE 'the armed wing of the Department of Health'.

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The irony is in his criticising something that is required because of his criticisms.

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Countries than produce fewer total CO2 emissions than Ireland:

Bangladesh (Pop. 162m)
Ethiopia (Pop. 80m)
Peru (Pop.30m)


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Because one doctor in his spare time has specific points of disagreement with the Department or HSE you think that justifies the millions they spend on spin and handlers.

Justifies Mary Harney taking two PR people and no cancer medic on her cancer fact finding trip to the US?

Defensive medicine?

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If I have to hear John Crown going on yet again about he has been victimised and that he was conspired against when he was to appear on the Late Late Show I will vomit. He is just another ideologue who, like many consultants, thinks his opinion is the only one that matters and anybody who has different ideas than his must be involved in some evil conspiracy.

He would be the perfect guy to put on a committee setup to restructure the health service - if you wanted to ensure no consensus would ever be reached.

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FIANNA FAIL - THE PARTY BEFORE COUNTRY PARTY.
Our 2010 election motto: "Every emigrant is one less vote for the opposition - keep it up boyos"

Maybe he needs a PR adviser?

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