Ronnie Simpson's Blog

I had a meeting in town on Tuesday morning so after it wandered by Leinster House to view the reaction of the elderly to the Government’s increase in income thresholds for medical cards which they had announced the previous day.
 

I saw two girls aged about 8 and 9 with home made placards saying “Don’t mug my Gran”.  I passed an elderly lady who had collapsed and for whom the Garda were calling up an ambulance. I felt ashamed, that as a society, we had caused such stress that these elderly felt the need to travel from all parts of the country to march the streets.
 

And let me be clear. I do have some sympathy with the principle of what the Government was trying to achieve. I’m not sure the taxpayer should be funding the Viagra of Hugh Hefner type multi-millionaires. But the targeting and delivery of the Government action bore all the precision of a US bombing raid with unacceptable collateral damage.
 

Text book crisis management suggests that organisations can not only regain but enhance their reputation in a disaster if they respond correctly but the increase in thresholds announced on Tuesday was too little, too late. When you have razed the building to the ground with severe casualties, apologising that your communications system was a bit wonky and offering to rebuild 95% of the structure has little impact.
 

The textbook response would have been for the Government to come out with their hands up, admit they made a mistake and apologise for the worry they have caused. They might have got away with the move if they had announced the new thresholds straight off on Budget day. By Tuesday the only option was to admit the mistake, apologise, scrap the removal of medical cards and raise the money from a less vulnerable group.
 

Also the new threshold is not targeting millionaires but middle classes who were able to save for a small occupational pension. The revised threshold should have been taxable on net not gross income. The prospect of the State conducting a witch-hunt against 70, 80 and 90 years olds who may breach the threshold is unsavoury.
 

I am very surprised that Fianna Fail’s usually impeccable public relations antenna failed to operate on this occasion. The big PR problem with medical cards is that they gave and then removed the benefit. Never in budgetary history was so much pain caused to so many by so few.
 

I am even more surprised that Fianna Fail’s political survival skills deserted them. From an economic point of view the desirable principle of not applying the benefit to the very wealthy has also been damaged if not destroyed.