Madam, - The many tributes to the late Tom O'Higgins are well deserved. As Minister for Health in the 1954-1957 coalition he was one of few occupants of that particular portfolio who left a lasting legacy to the wellbeing of at least part of our nation.
At a chance meeting in the Bar Library in 1954, Taoiseach John A. Costello promised O'Higgins the Department, saying: "Tom, I want you to take health out of politics." O'Higgins took up the challenge and the final piece of legislation to be passed in that Dáil was his Health Act, which brought the VHI into being.
The great pity is that in the half-century since then only a third of the population have been able to avail of health care that is free from political meddling. Instead of extending insured health care to the public at large, the retrograde 1970 Health Act gave parish-pump politicians free reign over their hospital and community services and the culture of jobbery, parochialism and favour-trading persists to this day.
Nearly 50 years after the appointment of Tom O'Higgins, it would be a fitting tribute to his pioneering work to complete the job, and finally take politics out of health. - Yours, etc.,
Dr MAURICE GUÉRET,
Fortfield Road,
Dublin 6w.