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  |   Ben Scallan   |   Comment Ireland

Gino Kenny TD: Covid “did a number of positive things”

This week, People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny told the Dáil that the Covid-19 virus “did a number of positive things” – specifically citing the State commandeering private healthcare as a great benefit to the country.

But far from being of benefit, this actually exposed what a disaster the State-run healthcare system is – though he’d likely never admit it.

Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Kenny said that “in the throes of the pandemic, the virus did a number of – I hate to say this – positive things.”

“One of the things that happened was the commandeering of private healthcare,” he said.

“There was no such thing as the two-tier health system for a period of time. Most of the 19 private hospitals were commandeered by the State. It throws a big question into why we need a one-tier health system. We saw the potential for better public service.”

Now of course, the only reason the private healthcare system had to be seized by the State was because the State-run system was on the verge of imminent collapse from even the mildest of shocks. A gust of wind could have taken the whole thing out because it was so fragile and mismanaged.

And so in a desperate last-ditch effort to stave off total destruction, the government had to wildly scramble to grab private beds to prevent catastrophe. In Kenny’s proposed system – a one-tier health system run by the state – we’d be reliant solely on the HSE, with zero backup option in the event of an emergency.

Not only is this not proof that state-run healthcare is great – it actually demonstrates the precise opposite.

It should also be noted at this point that ideologically, Kenny is a self-described Marxist.

Of course, in Marxism, the concept of private property and private business is verboten. Under a Socialist or Communist system, the State would run and own everything, and there would be no private hospitals, or private factories, or private anything.

What Kenny is effectively saying here, then, is that with Covid, we have all gotten a little foretaste of the Marxist Utopia – at least, as far as health is concerned.

And what did that Utopia look like exactly?

Well, for starters, in 2020 alone, this new and improved one-tier health system missed around 2,000 cancers, and who knows how many in 2021. There are almost certainly thousands of people walking around in Ireland right now dying of cancer, who are unaware of the damage being done to them.

According to the National Treatment Purchase Fund, there are now 879,000 people on hospital waiting lists, 96,000 of which are children, and 9 people are added every hour.

Moreover, despite the Omicron variant of Covid appearing to be one of the mildest strains yet – something which was apparent since it first emerged – Irish officials spent months in a state of panic that this relatively weak variant could topple the HSE entirely.

Is this what one would call “better public service”? Or is it displaying how one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world appears to barely be held together with masking tape and pritt stick?

The message of our Leftwing friends appears to be summed up thusly: “You know the state which has failed to run anything effectively? Let’s give them exclusive control of everything.”

For example, the state makes a balls of the housing market? Easy solution: give them more control of housing.

The state wrecks healthcare? Well let’s eliminate all private options and make them run even more hospitals.
Ask yourself this: if you had an employee who failed to do any job you gave him, no matter how small or simple, and couldn’t even make a cup of coffee properly, would your response to that situation be “Let’s give this guy even more vital jobs”? Or would you think, “This lad should not be anywhere next or near to anything remotely important”?

Presumably, you’d think the latter.

The takeaway from Covid is not “This just shows how much we need the government involved in important affairs.” If anything, it proves how important it is to get these lads far, far away from jobs they’re clearly incapable of doing, no matter how many exorbitant pay rises you give them.

 

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