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

I want to come back again along the lines Deputy Shortall was mentioning there with regard to the primary centres. In my locality, we had to attend a public meeting in the context of the recent local and European elections. It was disclosed to us that we had changed the locations. There was no consultation with anybody that I am aware of, except we were told there was no suitable site available in, for instance, Maynooth. That is not true. The biggest building construction concentration in the country is in Maynooth. It has been for the past four or five years and is growing, and it has to grow in order to accommodate the population.

My concern, Deputy Shortall referred to this as well, is about who calls the shots. Is it going to be somebody who says, "I have a site available four or five miles down the road"? That site may suit some people, but it might not suit those who have to travel there. In addition, in the context of meeting the demands of a community that is going to grow rapidly, there may not be a suitable site available.

I strongly contest the criteria used so far and object to them on the basis of the lack of consultation. That means that we need to upgrade the services in all towns and villages because in many cases, it has been 50 years since that has been done. In the meantime, there is a major growth in demand and this is going to continue in the next ten, 15 or 20 years. We need to keep that in mind and we need to ensure that what we do is done in the interests of the provision of health facilities to the wider community in line with the growing demand and given the commitments. We cannot get into a situation whereby we make a commitment and have a pecking order, a priority list and so on, and just because something comes handy for somebody else somewhere, we change all that. We should not change that. We are in the business of the delivery of health services, not the delivery of sites for somebody. I emphasise that and put down a marker to the effect that this will not be an easy-go system. We will not be easily fobbed off on that one or any other one where a commitment is already made.

I will make a point about demand on the health services in general. It applies to almost all services now, in every area, whether health, sport, industrial investment, job creation or whatever it is. That is all increasing. The demand has to increase. Even though we are at a very high level and have improved considerably in the past ten years, and rightly so, the fact of the matter is that we have a bigger population. I heard somebody today mention in a report that we could have too many houses, the answer being to stop building houses, presumably, in the meantime. What a load of nonsense. That is like the situation that developed after the financial crash, when, as we will all recall, there were fellas running around saying, "We must demolish the houses that are built. We do not need them." What a load of nonsense. Where do people get these ideas? The fact of the matter is that when you have built something, you use it. When you have too many houses, you will know very quickly. The price in the market will indicate that to everybody. However, let us not start running against the tide and say that, in anticipation of the fact that we might have too many houses, in the event of the population going down, flood levels rising and so on - we need not and should not go there. We need to be very careful as to what we do and what we present.

The final point I will make on that is simply as follows. I notice that in several areas the intention is the continuous rise in house prices. That cannot happen. There has to be a levelling off. People say there is inflation. Yes, we know, and every contribution and every increase contribute more to that inflation. That is a fact, and we all know that. There is a time for us to re-evaluate more than where to locate the primary healthcare facilities. We need to do it now, otherwise it will be after the event.