Shame On Ireland For Dr Neary, And On New York For Philip Rooney

By Charley Brady

Of course the blind side has always been helped by the amount of ass-kissing journalists that there are in this media- driven world. I'm not talking about the likes of real journalists like John Pilger, Gene Kerrigan, Robert Fisk or Richard Waghorne, to name just a few.

I'm talking about the cloth- eared media whores who find it acceptable to print any old rubbish, just as long as gets them a mention in the laughable 'social columns' and a free backstage pass to Bono's next gig as long you say something nice about him.

We saw here last week high- quality television drama that has made more of an impact than the actual reporting of the events ever could.

The two- part television drama called "Whistleblower", acted and filmed superbly is about a genuine modern-day monster, Dr. Michael Neary, a widely respected obstetrician who needlessly removed the wombs and sometimes the ovaries of 129 women that we know of.

The sheer hell that he put these poor souls through, some of them as young as 19 or 20, is almost unbearable to think about.

One nineteen-year-old who had both ovaries and womb removed for no reason found herself going through the menopause at an age when she should have been out having fun. But fun wasn't something that entered into Neary's lexicon.

This took place in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in the '90s and he was permitted to get away with it because of the silence of his good Catholic church-going staff. Also because his cronies decided to look the other way.

One of our own after all, dear boy. It took an outsider, an Englishwoman - who, of course, can't get work in this country any more since she was a whistleblower and now has to work abroad - to bring his straw house down.

There's just something in the Irish psyche, isn't there? This goes for the Scots as well.

I know so many that are true rebels, who question everything they are told. Yet I also know a disproportionate amount that will just bend over as soon as they hear an English accent or see a suit with a little pocket hankie poking out.

I worked for many years with a Belfast man who never stopped boring the bejesus out of us with his claptrap about what he did during the troubles of '69-'74.

Yet the same fella's legs would turn into a sort of putrid, rancid jelly as soon as he was asked to do something by anyone with an English accent.

On one particular occasion I even saw the French manager of the time literally reduce him to tears. And let's be honest: when a French guy reduces you to tears it's time to seriously think about falling off the twig.

I had no respect for him and I certainly have no respect and will never listen to the excuses made by the good Catholic nurses who let Neary get away with his vile acts.

Nor is there a happy ending here: Neary was struck off the register ten years ago, but remains in his very nice mansion on full pension to this day.

As I've said before, it doesn't matter in this country what kind of bribe-taking murderous animal you are. If you have the loot and you wear a nice suit with pocket hankie and talk down to the people that you know will let you get away with it, then you will never ever do time.

We have a growing collection of bent solicitors (who all seem to find Bulgaria a fascinating place to leg it to, for some reason); we have paedophile priests who for years were simply shifted to another parish and let loose.

Thankfully, we don't have as many bent cops as most places, as far as I can see, although they're there all right; and politicians. Well, don't get me started on them. I often think that their first words on emerging from the womb are "Brown envelope, Mama, brown envelope."

But perhaps the commendable "Whistleblower" has caused enough outrage to see a new look at why Neary is on full pension, with a house in Ireland and one in Spain.

I'd like to think that this loathsome skin-crawling slime- bucket will see the rest of his years out in jail, preferably on the blunt end of a broom-handle so that he knows how much these women felt invaded in the deepest way by him. But this is Ireland, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

Yes, it's hard not to be almost totally cynical here. We've been locked in pay-talks for weeks now, since the economy came crashing down around our ears.

But we can always depend on one thing and that of course is the caring and sensitivity of our political masters.

On the same day that we were being told to tighten our belts - and doesn't that just remind you of our late unlamented (by me, at any rate) phoney squire, fraud and all- around crook Charles J Haughey - our politicians decide to give themselves an enormous pay increase.

For what? Bloody Hell, you're guess is as good as mine; but they WERE just back from a three-month holiday in which the country had miraculously run itself, so maybe they had overspent a tad.

Anyway, the upshot is that there is now no T.D. in Ireland who earns less than €100,000 a year.

Doesn't matter that people are dying in filthy hospitals; doesn't matter that there are schools that are infested with rats; doesn't matter that Dr. Neary is not in jail but instead enjoying his two homes and his €70,000 a year pension; doesn't matter that unemployment is higher than it's been in a decade. Don't you get it? IT DOESN'T MATTER!

It doesn't matter that there are good journalists here because no one will listen to them. It doesn't matter that there are caring, passionate politicians like Senator Fidelma Healy Eames. I'm sorry, Fidelma, it doesn't matter.

I for one don't intend to go quietly into that good night but at the back of my mind is what Gore Vidal wrote about his own political ambitions in the early '60s when he said that you think you will be the one to change the System; but when you get into the System you suddenly realise that it can't BE changed. It's almost like it's hermetically sealed.

Finally, on the day after 9/11 I'm indebted to Sean Murphy of the Irish Daily Star for his exposé of a very sad story that came from the events of that day.

They were all sad, of course, but I can only concentrate on one so it'll be on a young Irishman who died through trying to help your city of New York, a city that he loved.

41-year old Philip Rooney's mother is from County Donegal and his father is from Dublin.

He worked for the New York City Transport and was one of the many "first responders" and worked, wearing only a paper mask, to pull survivors of the Towers out on that day.

Philip, an extremely fit man and genuine Irish hero, died of acute myelogenous leukaemia last March, but the New York State Department has told his parents, Pat (74) and Mary (64) and I quote: "Prove he wasn't sick before he went to help."

The authorities then wiped out the health insurance cover for his family. I'll let his mother tell the rest: "This is New York's dirty little secret." His aunt goes on to say: "Philip's wife Patricia now has to pay €850 a month in healthcare."

The children's mum Pat added: "We want to get what Philip wanted. He didn't want compensation, just for his family to be looked after. But the powers-that-be don't want to know. They have turned their back on Philip's sacrifice. He spent weeks at Ground Zero for his city. He wasn't trained for that and he was not trained to cope with what he saw in there."

There is no history of leukaemia in Philip's family and now his parents and his sister have taken the fight to Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

I wish them well, but must also admit that until I began researching this piece I had no idea of the amount of firefighters and rescue workers who have died as a direct consequence of the after-effects from that terrible day.

Watching the footage of Bush with his arm draped across the shoulders of a firefighter three days after the slaughter and pledging to give $175 million dollars, only to later cut it by $125 million made me feel physically ill.

As to the New York State Department who think that saving money is better than caring for the families of heroes who died trying to save your city, all I can say is Shame on you.

Shame on you.