The lucky general

Minister James Reilly has shown remarkable political resilience in the face of questionable achievements to date. My Medical Independent column from 10 October 2013.

Reilly’s special advisor paid €160,000 for 80% of his time, works here ‘on average’ 2 weeks a month

Minister James Reilly’s  much heralded special advisor Martin Connor, who is the most senior health policy advisor in the Department of Health’s Special Delivery Unit, is also a research fellow in Stanford University, in the heart of the silicon valley in California.

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A healthy nation hangs in the balance

Here is final pre election article I did for politico.ie on the parties respective health policies. Now that a Labour/Fine Gael government seems inevitable, the interesting policy outcomes will be what type of universal health insurance they agree to, whether the HSE will be abolished or not (my guess is that it will be renamed and reformed into different bodies but with most staff doing the same job under a different employers title) and of most importance – who will be minister for health – with James Reilly being hot favourite….