Crewser, the whole idea of universal health insurance is that everyone has the same insurance – only low income families have all or part of their premiums paid for by the State. Medical services are funded from fees paid by patients,who all get the same treatment. It has worked well in Germany since the 19th Century.

As for Fianna Fail’s reputation for managing the economy – they have been surfing the wave provided by Ruari Quinn. They have consistently failed to use the economic riches available to the Government to improve infrastructure to the benefit of the more disadvantaged sectors of society. On the key long term economic factors… education, environmental infrastructure (waste, water and sewers), health care, housing – the basis of a modern post industrial society, FF/PD have failed because they confuse personal wealth for the few with a thriving economy. Bertie’s one major sucess has been to reinforce and reassure the new Haugheyite Ascendancy. Long term Bertie will be seen as having been as disastrous for Ireland’s future economic success as was Maggie (who used North Sea oil revenue to pay for the long term unemployed she created). I could go on…but FF won’t listen – they still suffer from the delusion that they can form a Govt with Labour.

Gordon

Co-location is a nice buzzword and it seems logical when you just look at it from a distance. It’s when you focus on the details that you see the problems with it. It’s the same with decentralisation of public services, e-voting, competition in the electricity sector to list just a few examples. All nice ideas in theory but the implementation is disastrous.

For me the only real difference between the government and the alternative is the health issue. The government are pro-Hanly and the alternative are anti-Hanly. The Hanly proposals with their focus on centralised, specialised so-called centres of excellent at the expense of general, accessible, local hospitals are not in the best interests of the public.