Did somebody say “election fever”?

Maybe this isn’t what they meant. But here’s a word to the wise for all ministers for health, former ministers for health and prospective ministers for health. Don’t muck about on camera with your mates – especially not in a hospital bed – lest you end up looking as if you’ve gone totally off your trolley.

The Department of Health must have been a cheerier place in 1989 than it is nowadays. For here is the minister for health of the day, Dr Rory O’Hanlon, as the caption puts it, “taking full advantage of a conducted tour of the Department of the Elderly extension at St Columcille’s Hospital, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, after he officially opened the building with Councillor Austin Groome, chairman, Eastern Health Board, yesterday”.

We don’t often see the words “opening” and “hospital” in the same sentence any more, so let’s pause to enjoy that part first.

Deep breath . . . ommmmm.

Now then. Rory O’Hanlon became minister for health after the 1987 general election which brought a minority Fianna Fáil government to power. The party had campaigned on a platform of no public spending cuts but, once elected, executed a smart U-turn.

So although Dr O’Hanlon gained considerable brownie points by introducing a law to curb smoking in public places, he presided over a list of cuts in relation to healthcare so savage that they earned him the nickname “Dr Death”.

You’d never think it to look at this photo. The pair appear to be delighted with themselves and with the facilities at Loughlinstown; and indeed, the bed linen is crisp, the pillows plump, and the overhead hoist clearly solid enough to give even a sagging minister a jolly good leg up.

Though what sort of medical procedure Councillor Groome may be indicating with his right hand, we aren’t even going to imagine.