Michael D goes international

What can you say Michael D takes his campaign to France. For some unknown reason, a Michael D poster has appeared in bus stop in Brittany. Good old Michael D always looking for the international angle.

Any way we are down to one day to go, I have been on the campaign trail for 16 months now and it all comes down to one day.

I spent this afternoon in Thomastown and the evening with a large canvas team in Kilkenny City. Seamus Pattison joined me on the canvas again this evening.

The Kilkenny Voice has tipped Labour to be battling for the last seat, so get out an vote we need every number 1 possible.

Pat's statement when visiting the A&E in Kilkenny

Labour’s plan for ending the chaos in A&E, which we are highlighting today, sets out a comprehensive and deliverable set of measures to improve conditions in A&E and across the health service. In drawing up our plan, we taken on board many of the lessons learned in St Lukes Hospital in Kilkenny. St Lukes is known throughout the health service as a hospital that works, and which has avoided the worst problems experienced in A&E units across the country. As I have seen on my previous visits to Kilkenny, there are a number of elements in making A&E departments function effectively, that we need to replicate.
As I have repeatedly emphasised, bed capacity is critical, both in terms of acute in-patient beds, and in respect of step-down facilities. That is why Labour is committed to building 2300 hospital beds and 1500 step-down beds.
We also need better organisation of A&E units and better liaison with local medical practitioners. A particular feature of St Luke’s is its Medical Assessment Unit, where patients can be seen, assessed and if necessary admitted to hospital without having to spend hours in A&E. Equally, it is important to have strong relationships with local GPs, to speed up admission to hospital based on a diagnosis made in the GP’s surgery. Too many people are spending too much time sitting in A&E, waiting to be seen by a less experienced doctor, when their GP has already assessed their condition.
Of course, we cannot exactly replicate the St Luke’s model in every hospital in every particular, but we can learn the lessons. Labour’s A&E plan sets out a series of measures to be put in place in A&E units across the country. These include medical assessment units, separate queues to treat minor injuries, better liaison with GPs and better facilities for GPs to diagnose problems before people go into hospital in the first instance.
We also need rigorous enforcement of cleaning protocols to end the phenomenon of dirty hospitals.
With these changes, and with the team-work approach which is so evident in St Luke’s, we can make a real difference to the A&E situation.

Marking Seamus Pattison's Retirement

In the coming week, we will see the dissolution of the government and an election called. For many of us this means the campaign to win a seat in the next Dáil, enters it final stages. However in Carlow / Kilkenny we are also marking the retirement after 46 years of Seamus Pattison.

Seamus has served both the Labour Party and people of Carlow / Kilkenny with great honour and dignity over these years. It is a credit to him that he was elected continually over many elections and through good and bad times for the Labour Party. I am proud to have worked on many of his campaigns and we had many long nights waiting for results to come in, but no matter what Seamus always pulled through.

It is only fitting that we thank Seamus and I personally am proud to be running as part of a strong team on behalf of the Labour Party to retain Seamus' seat and work for the people of Carlow / Kilkenny as he has done for many years.

It is popular now for varying vested interests to say that the people in each county should only vote and transfer to candidates living within their own counties. However Seamus is proof, if proof is needed, that it is the calibre of the person elected and not where they live that is important.

Seamus, thanks for the good years and I am grateful to you for the help and advice you have given so far in my campaign.

Health Survey Results

During January the as part of Labours National Health Survey we dropped 2,500 surveys into homes across Kilkenny and the results certainly make interesting reading. Seamus Pattison TD and myself launched the survey locally in mid January.

The national survey shows 42% of people wait for over 6 hours in Accident and Emergency services, but this is only 20% in the Kilkenny area. The same applies for those admitted to a hospital bed with 85% of Kilkenny respondents waiting less than 12 hours for a bed, compared with a national figure of 49%. Unfortunately, this seems to lead to Kilkenny being at the bottom of the pile for funding of the facilities we are demanding, rather than being rewarded. The good results are a credit to the staff in the hospital and we should be proud of them, however the government need to address the funding short falls.

The other national figures in the survey are truly shocking. The divide between public and private patients is astonishing. 84% of private patients are seen by a consultant within three months, compared to just 30% of public patients. 98% of private patients virtually all are seen within six months, compared to 58% of public patients. As many as 22% of public patients have to wait longer than a year to see a consultant, compared to 1% of private patients.

This proves to me that in this country wealth and not need determines a person’s access to health care. If there has ever been a reason to change a government this has to be it. Knocking on doors, you meet people on waiting lists and you see the suffering they have to endure because they cannot afford to buy their way up the queue. You cannot but be angry when you see people left to suffer and the state ignoring their suffering.

New Labour Councillor in Carlow

On Sunday I was in Borris in Carlow where the Labour branch was selecting the person to replace Michael Meany as the local Labour Councillor. Borris has always been a traditional Labour strong hold and Michael's passing has been a big loss to us all.

The meeting was very well attended and chaired by Jack Wall TD, who explained the procedure's and voting to the members. The two candidates seeking the nomination were William Quinn and Seamus Hayes both of the Borris branch. In a very tight race, William came out the winner by just one vote. Fair play to Seamus as he was the first to congratulate William and offer his full support going forward. William Quinn is a 49 self employed contractor and small farmer from Spahill and continues on the long tradition of small farmers in the Carlow Kilkenny Labour Party. William was widely involved coaching juvenile hurling and football and was a founder member of Borris Community Games.

Well done William and I look forward to working with you in the coming busy months.

Education, Education, Education

On Monday we hosted a visit from Party Leader Pat Rabbitte to Kilkenny, where we took in visits to important sites around Kilkenny. I would like to thank my fellow Councillors Marie Fitzpatrick for hosting us at a stay in school programme in Kilkenny.

Marie outlined how such programme struggle to get proper funding and is constantly under resourced. The is amazing to see the work and commitment the staff in the centre have to make sure all young adults have a proper access to education, I firmly believe that investment is such centres is money well spend. The right for every person to access to education at a level that suits their needs is a fundamental right.

We in Labour are committed to invest in education, be it from pre-school to adult learning, life long learning is the future of our knowledge economy.

Our first commitment to change is:
Free pre- school education for one year for our children.
Labour in government will provide one year of free pre-school education, amounting to five half days per week per child. This is a major project and will require a great deal of effort - we believe it to be an investment in tomorrow rather than a cost today.
It is a major project, involving building new facilities, converting existing ones, and training and deploying a significant number of staff. We would see it as essential to work through existing providers, so as, as far as possible, to knit pre-school education into the broader childcare infrastructure.

More details on the commitment.

http://www.labour.ie/blog/archive/2007/01/15/commitment-for-change-1/

Health Survey

Over the weekend Seamus Pattison and I took part in the local launch of the Labour Party’s health survey. Nationally Labour is distributing 52,000 questionnaires to households asking for peoples’ opinions and experience of our health system. Locally Labour members are distributing 5,000 leaflets to homes across the electoral areas in Carlow / Kilkenny. In Kilkenny I want to personally thank my council colleagues, Seán Ó hArgáin, Marie Fitzpatrick, Maurice Shortall, Anne Phelan and Tomas Breathnach for organising the questionnaires to be delivered in their local area. People will tell you that no one is interested in politics any more, well to see Labour members braving the elements to hand deliver 5,000 surveys to homes across Carlow / Kilkenny proves otherwise.

It was also great to launch the surveys with Seamus Pattison, Seamus has given 45 years strong and loyal service to the public in this constituency and I am proud that he is helping and advising me in my campaign, to also offer the same level of service to hard working families across both counties.

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing/20060424121433.html

Time for the government to admit their mistake.

Spent Saturday back on the canvas, which was my first day back after the holidays. My fellow Labour Councillor Anne Phelan joined me on the canvas in the village of Goresbridge. Goresbridge is within the local election area which both Anne and I represent. We both take pride in the fact that the Labour Party has the highest number of councillors in this area.

The main issue on the doors steps in Goresbridge was the closure of the local secondary school, St. Brigid's, a few years back. The local parents to their credit ran a very positive campaign to save the school and are now being proven correct in the fact that the school was needed. The schools in the surrounding areas are reaching full capacity and there is a need to cater for the increase numbers over the next few years. I am glad to say that both Anne and I were very strong in support for keeping the school open. However the Department of Education and government TD’s from the area did not listen to the people, invest in the school and keep it open.

Frankly, to this day I cannot see any sense in closing a great school like St. Brigid’s. It is quite clear to me as well as everyone in the local area that a school now needs to be rebuilt in Goresbridge. Needless to say government TD’s will be falling over each other offering to lobby on the matter closer to the election.

It is time for the government and the department to admit they were wrong and start the plans to reopen the school; of course they will in the process waste millions replacing the school they closed in the first place. Not that wasting hard working families tax money matters to this government, wasting money is something they are very good at.