Jennifer O'Connell

speaker

2,353 appearances 8 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 4d ago

Jennifer O'Connell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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The Women's Podcast · Festival women / Sally Hayden on love during wartime · 4 Jun 2026 podcast

He's a retired consultant obstetrician himself.

So he's on the side, you would expect, of the consultants.

And he's a former master of the Coombe Hospital.

But he's actually not on the side of the consultants on this one.

And he's writing about what he expects is going to be a head-on collision between the HSE, the Department of Health, and Carol McNeill, as they all line up and say, this has to stop.

So since Fintan's column appeared, I've had a few emails in from women, very thought provoking ones, saying that it's their right to choose private care if they want to and if they have the means to pay for it.

And like, I wouldn't argue with that.

And I actually can't argue with that, given that I have three children, all of whom were born in private maternity care.

And, you know, Fintan's deeply opposed to it.

And I absolutely respect his thinking on it.

I had my own reasons, which at the time, I don't know if it's of interest, but at the time my husband was working for a US multinational which paid for private health care.

So it didn't cost me anything.

It's hard to turn it down when somebody's saying, here, I'm going to pay for all this.

And at the time, there was a private maternity hospital.

So I wasn't, you know, taking up, which is one of the, you know, this kind of gets to the heart of it.

I wasn't going into a public hospital and using up the time that would have been allocated to public patients.

with my private health care.

It was happening elsewhere.

And also I had health issues in my first pregnancy, sort of mild ones.

And my first baby was born small for dates.

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