Tony O’Brien: Government’s failure to commit to Sláintecare is a sick joke

The plan, a set of policies aimed at reforming the health service, has come to a sorry pass and amounts to a stunning betrayal of the public

‘Sláintecare was a long-term policy programme capable of transcending the electoral cycle and delivering in the long term.’ Picture: Fergal Phillips

Writing in this newspaper four weeks ago – before any inkling of the impending resignations of Tom Keane and Laura Magahy from the board of the Sláintecare Implementation Advisory Council – I suggested the establishment of a citizens’ assembly for health reform.

My rationale was that the pace of progress on the big-ticket Sláintecare reforms was so glacial as to be painful and did not suggest any real forward momentum. There was already a clear ...