Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Looking Back
This is Enda Kenny's biggest regret
The Taoiseach has been reflecting on nearly five years in office.
ENDA KENNY HAS said he finds the “distressing stories” that emerge from the health service as difficult to deal with.
Asked what he regretted not making more progress in since becoming Taoiseach in 2011, Kenny identified the health service.
“I don’t like to have distressing stories in regard to health issues that arise occasionally. I find that difficult, I have to say,” he told reporters during a pre-Christmas briefing.
He said that Health Minister Leo Varadkar is tackling the problems in the health service “in a really vigorous way”.
The Fine Gael leader offered his support to the increasingly embattled minister insisting he has been doing “an excellent job in a very difficult position”.
Kenny said that the government is focussed on creating greater economic growth in order to make further investment in the health service and other areas.
What the government will pay attention to is continuing to drive the recovery to have the engine. You need an economic engine to be able to provide for these many services, not just in health but in education and in justice and in defence and infrastructure.
But the Taoiseach indicated that he would not be in a position to repeat the now infamous promise to end the trolley crisis, as he did during the 2007 general election.
“What I will be in a position to do is to tell them the progress that we are making, that we have made,” he said.
“That that’s our intention: to continue to invest, to reform, to manage it competently [in] the people’s interest and to get the very best response for every patient, be they child or adult.”
have your say