Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I know. I refer to how the Minister for Health and the HSE has prepared for the retirements. The Minister of State referred to how the HSE's regional service plans will deal with the situation, yet the HSE's national service plan was only published in mid-January, two weeks into the year. As of last week it became clear what the retirement levels would be at the end of next month, but we have now to wait on the HSE's regional service plans to deal with that. What advance planning has taken place? What effort has been made to ensure cover for those critical services that cannot be replaced overnight, such as midwifery? I got no reassurance in that regard from the response I received.

It is one mirage after another with the Minister. He said there would be no cuts to the number of beds, no increase in health insurance premia and no reduction in services as a result of retirements. That is the mantra we get from the Minister, yet when it comes to the crunch that is not the case. When it comes to the crunch in terms of retirements, the Minister has said we will have to cut back on elective procedures and we will probably have longer waiting lists. The need for midwifery services does not fall into the elective category. One cannot simply click one's fingers and get new midwives in overnight or the next week simply because a number of them have retired.

I see no evidence to date, nor in the response today, that the HSE or the Minister is on top of the issue or has any grasp of how we will deal with it. Consultants have said that if there is a plan, they have not seen it. That is not good enough. There has been a failure in terms of advance planning. Today's response does not in any way address the issue. I hope that in the coming days remedial action is taken to ensure the health of new babies and mothers is not put at risk in any way by this failure by the Minister and the HSE.

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