Little Leo is spending a fortune on his own personal media handling unit and yet he is still opening his mouth wide and placing his foot firmly in it.
So, Senator Catherine Noone alleged a male colleague repeatedly speaks down to her, dismisses her views and treats her in a misogynistic way and made her feel uncomfortable”. In response to her contribution Mr Varadkar said he would not “stand over any bullying or sexism towards colleagues”. You can take it then that Leo won’t ‘stand over’ people being spoken down to or having their views dismissed or being made feel uncomfortable. All very commendable so far.
But on the same day in response to the ‘Versatis’ scandal, he has insisted pain relief patches must be curtailed because of addiction concerns and over-subscribing by doctors. For those of you who don’t know, Leo is a fully qualified doctor so he knows that every prescription has side effects and he knows also that that any pain reliever has the potential to be addictive depending on the intensity of the pain to be relieved. So his statement amounts to a crock of shit or even deceit perhaps. But he is certainly guilty of speaking down to the 25,000 suffering patients involved, he has ignored their views and stated experiences completely and he has left them damned uncomfortable indeed.
The other major ongoing scandal, this time around the PTSB job-lot sale of mortgages in difficulty to preying vulture funds, attracted comment from little Leo also. Some of these embattled mortgage holders actually wrote to him and his response was as condescending as it was ill informed. He re-directed them to, “The Abhaile service launched in 2016 is a national mortgage arrears resolution service, the aim is to help mortgage holders in arrears to find the best solution and keep them in their own homes.” However, none other than the Master of the High Court has publicly called Leo’s reply, “A sick joke.” Speaking on RTE radio he claimed Abhaile is “Merely a voucher for €200 worth of legal advice before you go into the circuit court,” and we could add to that, “in order to have your home repossessed and your family turfed out in the street.” Leo’s lack of concern and contempt for the ordinary people is indeed thinly concealed.
In a speedy rearguard action, Leo’s handlers pushed the two-faced Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe before the cameras to say that, “It will protect jobs and the economy.” He added that, “The future health of PTSB, the third largest bank in the country, is “vital” to the economy, with deposits of over €17bn and 2,000 staff.” For sure Pascal and both we, and the 14,000 mortgage holders affected by this, and the 25,000 pain suffers denied their Versatis drug, actually put that €17bn up for the PTSB when it should have been shut down and its Directors jailed for fraud. Then the Department of Finance says it cannot interfere with commercial banks and how they sell their loans, despite the fact PTSB is 75% State-owned. It’s odd because that self same department can interfere with you any time they like, can’t they?
You get the feeling though that Leo’s nervous handlers may have become a little frantic at his high-handed dismissive public attitude and felt the need to confuse the issues or just stall for time because today the arrogant Leo was back to say that there is still time to prevent Permanent TSB from selling 20,000 distressed mortgages to vulture funds despite claiming the Government has no legal right to block the deal. He said the Government “very much stands on the side of people trying to pay their debts.” Does he think we are all fucking idiots?
Neither Leo nor Pascal, nor any of their front bench risk losing their beds tonight or any other night, to a vulture fund. None of them will go to those beds in screaming agony either, unable to sleep during the graveyard watch. The 25,000 pain suffers will lie staring in tears at the ceiling while the 20,000 future victims of the ravenous vulture funds will also stare in depression at their own ceilings while they still have them and sadly, little Leo will ‘stand over’ all of that because he just appears not to understand or care. You see, he is, in reality, ‘standing over’ people being spoken down to or having their views dismissed or being made feel uncomfortable. He is demonstrating contempt, deviousness and a callous cruelty for the very people he swore to represent and protect.
Bring on a General Election, sooner rather than later!
P.S. One day later and the story rolls on….
“Taoiseach’s views on pain killer patches ‘beyond comprehension’: doctor.”