Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We do not know what our actual expenditure is on public healthcare delivery here and the outcomes we get for it. We talk about life expectancy, and that is fair enough and I agree. However, I would like to see the what the life expectancy is for those at the bottom decile compared with life expectancy as a whole. We are moving further and further away from a delivery of healthcare – this is not Mr. Moloney’s issue as he is not the Minister for Health – based on need rather than ability to pay. Does a person live longer because they have more money? Are we becoming more of a country where the more money we have, the longer we live and the less money we have, the less chance we have of living longer? Again, I know that is a policy issue.

Mr. Moloney rightly said that in any Department, savings can be made. How did he calculate the savings that can be made across agency spending and consultancy? The HSE estimates that a maximum of one third of the deficit could be covered through maximum efficiency. However, this is not realistically achievable, is it? How do we calculate what savings can be achieved-----