{"id":66400,"date":"2025-09-15T23:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/66400\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:10:08","slug":"taoiseachs-exchange-with-exhausted-mother-a-fraught-moment-but-not-a-gotcha-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/66400\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach\u2019s exchange with exhausted mother a fraught moment but not a gotcha \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The terror on the faces of the Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> staffers, TDs and Ministers gathered around the Taoiseach on Monday were obvious.<\/p>\n

Like Michael Collins, Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> was facing an ambush on home turf. <\/p>\n

As he entered the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork<\/a> for his party\u2019s think-in, up stepped Antoinette Burke, who says her seriously ill child has been failed by the State, to confront the Taoiseach and demand action.<\/p>\n

The cameras clicked and phones began to record. There wasn\u2019t anyone present who wasn\u2019t thinking of Fine Gael<\/a> leader Simon Harris<\/a>\u2019s disastrous confrontation<\/a> with Charlotte Fallon in Kanturk during last year\u2019s general election campaign. <\/p>\n

Was this about to become another politically significant moment?<\/p>\n

\u201cKatie needs help,\u201d said Ms Burke, with the passion and exhaustion of someone who has been campaigning for years for her daughter.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Miche\u00e1l Martin criticises some councils over \u2018inertia\u2019 on housing and zoning landOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She said she has been trying to get surgery for her 18-year-old daughter, who has complex health needs, for 15 years.<\/p>\n

She wants the Minister for Health \u2013 or the Taoiseach, T\u00e1naiste, or anyone \u2013 to order the Health Service Executive<\/a> to carry out the surgery. Ms Burke is also trying to raise \u20ac300,000 to cover the cost of Katie having the surgery in the United States. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter is suffering, she is in pain,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

But \u2013 perhaps amazingly \u2013 Mr Martin and Ms Burke had a generally respectful exchange during which she succeeded in conveying her frustration and anger at the failure to provide her daughter with the care she needs. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach listened with his best concerned priest demeanour. He promised to look into the case. They parted amicably. It was a powerful and fraught moment. But it wasn\u2019t a gotcha.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Presidential election: Jim Gavin says Government performance on housing \u2018not good enough\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Later, questioned by journalists, Mr Martin explained that an information note supplied by Ms Burke suggested the objections to surgery by senior doctors were based on clinical grounds. <\/p>\n

That does not mean they are any less frustrating for Katie\u2019s mother to hear \u2013 and nor does it mean they are not open to question by other experts \u2013 but it does illustrate the difficulties politicians face on such matters. <\/p>\n

Who are they to order doctors to perform treatments? Often these things are not as black and white as they seem.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the lesser-spotted Fianna F\u00e1il presidential<\/a> candidate, Jim Gavin<\/a>, made an appearance. He acknowledged that the Government\u2019s performance on housing<\/a> has left something to be desired and that he would speak out \u201cwithout fear or favour\u201d, ala Michael D Higgins, if elected president. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach earlier pointed the finger at local authorities for not doing their bit to solve the crisis, suggesting he has strong words in store for them. But maybe he can\u2019t force them to do anything, either.<\/p>\n

Later, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers<\/a> emerged to issue another warning that the forthcoming budget<\/a> will be significantly more parsimonious that its predecessors.<\/p>\n

Last year, he promised voters they would be at least \u20ac1,000 a year better off after the budget. Asked what this year\u2019s figure would be, he predicting this was \u201cmore challenging\u201d and he was \u201cnot in a position\u201d to do so. <\/p>\n

After years of bumper giveaways, his forecast may turn out to be the most politically significant thing to happen in the coming D\u00e1il term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The terror on the faces of the Fianna F\u00e1il staffers, TDs and Ministers gathered around the Taoiseach on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,10471,1877,18,13,14,4771,553,6,2450,8752,60,19,17,26736,19487,11,12,15,16,5765,5,59,44,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-66400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-cork","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-fianna-fail","16":"tag-fine-gael","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-health-service-executive-hse","19":"tag-housing-crisis","20":"tag-hse","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-ireland","23":"tag-jack-chambers","24":"tag-jim-gavin","25":"tag-latest-news","26":"tag-latestnews","27":"tag-main-news","28":"tag-mainnews","29":"tag-micheal-martin","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-presidential-election","32":"tag-simon-harris","33":"tag-top-stories","34":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}