Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his opening statement, the conclusion of which, as should always be the case, sums up where we are in the context of the health services. As acknowledged by the Minister and Mr. O'Brien of the HSE, health funding is inadequate in terms of provision of care for people going through the health system. This is very evident in the context of our emergency departments. The Minister said that there is funding in place to stabilise the situation and that we are off to a good start. The bottom line is that we are not off to a good start. Rather we are off to a bad start. In the first month of 2015 there was a huge escalation in the number of people attending our emergency departments.

There is chaos in emergency departments throughout the country. There were 46 patients on trolleys in Limerick yesterday, 40 in Drogheda and 38 in Beaumont. On Monday I spoke to people who attended the emergency department in Cork University Hospital and were stunned by what they witnessed. People did not even have chairs to sit on while they were waiting. We are off to a very bad start.

The difficulty I have is that the plan lacks a certain amount of ambition. In fact, there is no ambition whatsoever in this HSE service plan and the Estimates to underpin and fund it. In the context of waiting lists, the Minister has, in effect, changed the targets because he failed to meet the previous targets. Johnny Sexton never comes off a rugby pitch and says the reason he missed the conversions was because the goals were in the wrong place. It is simply incredible that we now have a situation where we have run the white flag up the pole and accepted that the previous targets were unattainable, and are returning to ones which should be more attainable. The previous targets were wrong.

People should not have to wait eight months. In the mind of the Minister, 18 months is okay. I find it incredible that we are now accepting poorer standards of care. We have always emphasised the fact that, clinically and psychologically, it is bad for people to have to wait, and it is also bad for the health service in the long term because it will cost more when such people are eventually seen.

The Minister should be trying to address what is causing delays rather than changing the targets to make it look like there are no delays. That is what he has done in the context of inpatient and day case treatments. I do not know why anybody would come to the meeting and assume that things are getting better. We have had an appallingly bad start to 2015. We can assume that if things continue like this, within a matter of months we will encounter major difficulties.

I am most concerned about day cases and inpatient day cases because there has to be an acknowledgement at some stage that additional funding needs to be provided for the National Treatment Purchase Fund. There is no point in the Minister, Mr. Breslin or whoever the Accounting Officer for the health services is - I am still unsure about that - sitting here and pretending that we can get through this with what we have. If we try to get through with what we have, the Minister will have very long waiting lists and will have to increase targets again.

We have to accept that to deal with the escalation in waiting lists, the number of patients who have to see a consultant and those who will need to have treatment or procedures carried out this year, we will need to fund the National Treatment Purchase Fund. That is something that we will have to revisit very quickly for the sake of those who are on waiting lists.