Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have been instructed to listen carefully to what we have been told over the past 20 years regarding hospital beds. We were told all along that we had too many hospital beds and we did not need them. We were admonished at a high level for spending money on bricks and mortar because it was seen as unnecessary, and different ways were to be found to deal with patients in the future. That did not happen. It now appears we were misinformed by people who should have known better. We have now moved to another scenario. I realise that in the position we find ourselves, conditions in the workplace, insofar as our hospitals are concerned, are not ideal. That is presumably down to overcrowding and the pressure on consultants, staff, doctors, GPs and everybody else. Our system is not large enough to cater for the population, which I understand.

However, how do we compete? We have been told by the HSE that in appointing consultants, we have to compete with New York, Boston, Sydney and London, and if we do not, we will not get the staff. The independent review group held exchanges with the various stakeholders and reference was made to consultants' pay, which was the subject of a considerable increase that will put them among the best paid in the world. There are a couple of other issues we cannot deal with. We cannot offer the 24 hours a day of sunshine they have to offer in Australia. That is a decided disadvantage in attracting high-calibre people to high-calibre positions in this country. Similarly, we cannot compete with Canada and we cannot compete with the weather conditions in many areas, including in the Middle East. Are there issues other than consultants' pay that the independent review group considers might make that sufficient impact? We have asked this question on a number of occasions and we have not been given an answer. What is the total cost of that? Dr. de Buitléir made a stab at that in terms of the millions of euro required on an annual basis, which is hugely important. It would probably result in a cost of approximately €6 billion over a ten-year period. We tried to get that information from some of our guests in recent weeks. They were reluctant to tell us exactly the cost but they should be able to tell us because if there is dissatisfaction with the system as it is, it must be possible for those directly involved to identify what the problem is and to identify that it needs to be addressed.