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

I come from the generation that was led to believe many years ago that we had far too many hospital beds and hospitals and too much space in hospitals. We argued against this theory at the time for very good reasons which are now obvious to everybody. I am delighted to hear Mr. Gloster's vision for the future in this regard. As a priority, it would be helpful if he were to go down through those sensitive areas, put a deadline on them and put them away once and for all. Otherwise, we are going to be back here next year talking about the same issue. If it is not a winter plan, it will be a spring, summer or some other plan. That is only giving a name to something that is ongoing and has not been dealt with before. We are relying on Mr. Gloster to deal with that. I was told, regarding the housing situation long ago, that the solutions I proposed would take five years to do. Well it will take 20 years if it is never started.

There are a couple of other areas with which I will conclude. I have a couple of experiences in recent times of looking for somebody at the end of a telephone in the HSE, for instance, in the medical card section. There is a dedicated phone line for politicians, but the only thing we ever get to is somebody handling information at the end of a telephone line. It can go on and on. I brought this up before in relation to medical cards for people with serious, life-threatening or possibly terminal illnesses. I have always felt the families are going through enough trauma without the added trauma of wondering if it would be possible to get a medical card. These used to be readily available once upon a time. They are no longer available except when the case has been examined two, three or four times, notwithstanding the availability of the consultant's report and the GP's report, both of which point towards this being a serious situation that needs to be dealt with now. Somebody comes back from the medical card section and says a new application has to be made. Imagine what that is like for somebody who is facing those particular types of trauma. Will Mr. Gloster make an intrusion into that particular department with a view to providing a more readily available response? In a similar mode, reimbursement is one of the things we come up against again and again.

I want to make a point on the building programme. Again, regarding the local hospital in Naas, I remember years ago when it had been discussed for 16 years. That was long enough really and it was time to make a move to bring the discussion to an end and do something. The current proposals for that same hospital are being discussed for an awfully long time. The answer is the same year after year: oncology areas, enhancements, and extra space are needed. We are getting no nearer to what is becoming an outdated response to the questions and that frustrates us. When I used to be a member of the health board years ago, it used to really frustrate us. We were closer to the heat in that kind of situation.