Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief because many questions have been asked. I thank Dr. Kinsella. I wish to ask him about his studies. Our health service has moved from the Victorian type to matrons to the church, etc. Generally, everyone attended public hospitals, for example, accident and emergency departments.

Given that the national cancer strategy has worked well, should we start with that to find the information required for the national children's strategy, the national mental health strategy, the national disability strategy, the national cystic fibrosis strategy and so on and feed it into services that are provided through our public health services or otherwise?

Is this taking on board that we are looking at a single-tier health care service based on need rather than ability to pay? Reference was made to the population reaching eight million in so many years and those services coming together. The way the health service has developed in Ireland means there has never been direct information pulled, for example, from the national cancer treatment plan: what are the issues, what does one need, how does it get put through the system, how many patients are there, whether there will be more patients in the system over time, etc. Consider people who have cystic fibrosis or scoliosis and where their national treatment plan is going. It is done in Galway and at the children's hospital in Temple Street, among other places, but the issue is how to pull all that information together and how it can link in to make a more efficient service so health care can be provided based on need rather than ability to pay. It is about getting people into the public health service rather than letting them go private because they feel the public service is not there.