Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their presentations. They provided a great deal of information in what they had to say. I wish to touch on one or two issues. Reference was made to the hospital groups, and from the map presented it is obvious there are some areas of the country where no service is available. Taking into account the new hospital groups, what numbers would need to be employed to ensure that each hospital group had people to deal with this issue? Are we talking about many people, taking account of consultants, nursing staff and clinical support staff? Has any analysis being done on that under the new hospital groups setting?

The second issue relates to my area in Cork city, where I have met a large number of people, ranging in age from 55 upwards, who are now unemployed but would have been involved in manual employment over the years. Many of them have been unemployed for two, three or four years and would have left work with a back problem or a pain problem, but they do not see opportunities to return to the workforce. There has not been a huge improvement in how they view their future in that they do not see any prospects for themselves from an employment point of view. Does this contribute to the problem? The volume of manual employment has decreased. As a result of that, do our guests see a decrease in the number of problems they come across, or is the incidence likely to remain as it has been?

I know it is not tied in to manual employment but from where we have come from 20 years ago to now, given that we are far more conscious about health and safety, do the witnesses believe a lot more could be done in the area as well? I would welcome the view of the witnesses in that regard.