Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I will. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Private Members' motion and I thank the Technical Group or the United Left Alliance for tabling it. Any opportunity we have to discuss the issues in our health service are very much to be welcomed.

The Minister, Deputy Reilly, has been in the job for a very short time, yet seems to have to accept responsibility for everything that has ever gone wrong in the health service and many of the legacy issues which we inherited. The Government has quickly come to terms with what the people know, namely, that throwing millions and billions of euros at our health service, as was done by the previous Government, did not work. It is some turnabout that there is not one representative of that former Administration in the Chamber to contribute to the debate or, at least, to listen to the contributions. Throwing money at the problem did not work. We now have to review the services within our health system and this is the attitude that should have been adopted when we had more money. We now have to examine how our hospitals are to interact and the role for smaller hospitals. In that regard, I very much welcome the comments by the Minister, Deputy Shortall, in her contribution to this debate where she outlined that smaller hospitals have an important role to play in local communities.

There are lessons we must to learn from what our predecessors did and one in particular is in regard to the order in which any change, reform or reconfiguration happens. In the past we were told that services would be downgraded or reconfigured in one place or that services would be closed in one area and a new better, shinier service would be opened at a location at some point in the future. It is important that the sequence of events when it comes to reconfiguring any of our hospital networks is correct.

In that regard, I refer to the hospital that serves my constituency and that of the Deputies Boyd Barrett and Doyle, namely, St. Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown. It is essential, before there is any altering of the service at that hospital, that issues regarding the capacity of St. Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin and the paramedic service in County Wicklow are rectified. We have received confirmation from the HSE that capital of approximately €600,000 has been allocated to these two hospitals and that much of that capital is to expand the accident and emergency department in St. Vincent's hospital while further capital is to upgrade the wards in St. Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown to make it more appealing and desirable for day surgery. From a political point of view, I ask the Minister to give me, the people of Wicklow and the House an assurance that he will hold the HSE to this commitment in terms of the order in which things are done. That is really important.

I want to comment on the HSE in general. That bureaucracy is continuing to run riot and I take the example of trying to keep people out of hospitals. However, in my constituency of Wicklow carers who look after elderly relatives and try to keep them out of hospitals have been handed this sheet, which is a bladder record chart, and are expected to weigh incontinence products. I accept this is not a national directive and the Minister's Department has confirmed that for me but middle management in the HSE, unelected bureaucrats, are making these unilateral decisions. I welcome the commitments in the programme for Government and in our party manifesto that we will set about disbanding the HSE and bringing political accountability back to the health service. I commend the Minister on the job he has done to date.

I will always take advice on the health service serving my constituents not from politicians or bureaucrats, but from clinicians and in that regard the changes proposed for St. Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, if carried out in the right way, will provide a better service for my constituents, the people of County Wicklow.

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