Seán Conlan (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To continue on from Deputy Durkan, we know what the Opposition believes in and we saw it in action during the 14 years that Fianna Fáil tried to deliver. In my own county of Monaghan, they tried their best to close Monaghan General Hospital, including Deputy Micheál Martin, as Minister for Health and Children. They very nearly succeeded except that they were rejected in the previous general election. In addition, they wanted to close Cavan, Navan, Dundalk and Drogheda hospitals, and they had this pie-in-the-sky notion that they would build a super-hospital somewhere north of Dublin to replace all those hospitals. Thankfully, the new Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, is protecting the smaller hospitals and investing money in them. We are investing €9.5 million in Monaghan General Hospital to upgrade it and put in a primary care unit on the site. Just last week, we opened a primary care centre in Cavan town and we are also opening a cystic fibrosis unit in Cavan General Hospital, where we have also upgraded the medical assessment unit. These are positive changes that are taking place under this Government and helping small rural communities. In terms of the hospital groups, small towns now see a future for health care in their towns. It is being upgraded rather than downgraded, as was the case under Fianna Fáil.

This took us some time. The people who founded our State believed in republican ideals, in universality and in equal access to health care and education for all. It took us 40 or 50 years to get our act together before we gave people access to secondary education in the 1960s. Our public health care system does not work. The reason people buy private health insurance is that they have no faith in the public health care system. Fianna Fáil is reactionary, as always, and wants to retain the current system whereby poorer people have to wait longer for access to services. That is the Fianna Fáil model we know - let the poor wait while we who can pay get in through the front door as quickly as we want. What we are trying to do, as a Government, is live up to the republican ideals of the founders of this State by providing universal health care for all based upon need rather than ability to pay. I commend the Government and the Minister on trying to move this agenda forward.

What will be covered has been dealt with at length by Members in the House. Everyone will be entitled to a suite of services and to a choice of providers, and they will have free general practitioner access. This is all beneficial. I hear many people scaremongering about cost and asking how the middle classes will cope with paying the taxes to introduce this system. I point out that many people who have private health insurance at the moment are also paying for the public system through general taxation. In future, what we hope to introduce is a system which is efficient but, at the same time, more equitable and allows people who do not have the ability at the moment to access private health care to be given the exact same access as those who can. That is to be commended.

Many on the Opposition benches suggested this is about profit. It is not. The hospital groups are not-for-profit organisations. Their modus operandiis not to make profits but to deliver services. The private health care providers want to make a profit but they will only deliver a profit to their shareholders if they provide a service which the public want. Given that people will have a choice, if a provider is not providing a suite of services the public wants, they can go to another provider. If the hospital is not providing a service the public wants, the public will have an option to go to another private insurer and go to another hospital.

I see this as a real opportunity for small towns and small hospitals that were faced with closure under Fianna Fáil policies. It gives us an opportunity to provide specialist services in the hospitals of the country that people will access and use. I saw no hope for Monaghan or Cavan under Fianna Fáil and I saw no hope for our smaller hospitals. All I could see was closure and more centralisation closer to Dublin. Under this system, we have the hope that we can develop our services again. We have been able to retain our hospital and keep it open, and we now have a commitment from Government to provide extra money to develop it. With universal health insurance, if our hospital group and the people on the boards of the hospitals can define services which the local community really needs, I believe the local community will use those services and the hospitals will have a future.

This model is to be commended and is long overdue. If introduced between now and 2019, it will be a positive step in ensuring the ideals of the people who formed our country and State are finally realised.

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