WELL, here we are: three years since the collapse of the Assembly, onto our third secretary of state since the collapse and with little or no chance of the talks pencilled in for December 16 making a button of difference - and Julian Smith can come up with nothing better than a 'Sorry folks, it's nothing to do with me' approach to the health crisis.
We are fond of the crisis word in Northern Ireland. Hardly an hour goes by without one of the parties telling us that something or other is a crisis.
And they always want to do something about the crisis: although their plans never really go much beyond talking about it.
I could paper the walls of my office in press statements which tell me where the latest crisis is, but I'd be hard pushed to find just one statement setting out a detailed, costed solution to the crisis (even though everyone does seem to favour throwing buckets of money in the general direction of the crisis, even if they've no idea where that money would be most effective).
It's the lack of shame that really gets me. Hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists, many of them waiting for operations and many more waiting for appointments to determine how sick and in need of an operation they might be. Illness is no respecter of people. It doesn't give a damn if you're Protestant, Catholic, unionist, nationalist, male, female, young, old, white, black, white collar or multi-millionaire businessman.
It strikes without warning. Brutally and quickly. Plunging the lives of the individual and wider family circle into fear and despair.
Now, I accept that the political parties have their differences and that they have a mandate to champion their various policies. But they do not have a mandate to keep people waiting longer and longer for healthcare treatment, appointments and operations.
They do not have a mandate to cancel operations. They do not have a mandate to keep people for 48 hours on a trolley.
They do not have a mandate to prevent the allocation of funding. They do not have a mandate to grow the length of waiting lists.
They do not have a mandate to leave vacancies in hospitals unfilled. They do not have a mandate to shrug their shoulders and say, 'You can't have your hospital appointment until we have our language act, or culture act, or retention of the petition of concern, or the continuing right to collapse the assembly if we don't like any one of a number of issues that seem to be clogging up the talks processes'.
The length of our waiting lists would suggest that every one of us, every single person in Northern Ireland, probably knows a family member or a friend who is on that waiting list.
Just stop and think about that for a moment. Think about your family and friends.
There you go, I bet you're thinking about that one who is on the waiting list right now; and who may have been on it for weeks, months or years.
And yet we haven't had a minister of health for three years and nor do we have a secretary of state who seems prepared to step in and make the decisions which would, at the very least, make a dent in those queues and provide relief for people growing ever more fearful the longer they have to wait for an appointment or an operation.
"My pain doesn't go away. It's there every day. And by the time I get my appointment and then my X-ray I'm terrified that someone is going to say something like, 'Oh, if only we'd caught it sooner'.
"I can't afford private care. So I just wait and wait, praying for the postman to bring a letter confirming an appointment - even though I know I could still have to wait months. But at least I'd have a date to focus on."
That was a man, he told me he was 49, I met on a bus a few weeks ago. And, as I say, he is one of tens of thousands waiting just for the letter to let them know there is a bit of hope for them.
Every person in NI is being failed right now. Left to live in fear and discomfort if they are already on a waiting list. Dreading what would happen if, fit now, they become ill.
Our politicians and secretary of state should be ashamed of themselves. They are a disgrace.
