Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

That is a problem that needs to be dealt with, but it is not being dealt with in this Bill. If there is a problem in Dublin hospitals, that is part of the cause.

One of the masters of the maternity hospitals — I cannot remember which one — was asked on the radio this morning what the problem was and he stated strongly that it was a problem of resources. To anyone who has been in those three hospitals in recent years it is clear this is true. It is remarkable that only one of those three hospitals runs the domino system, which I strongly support. Under this system the skills of midwives are used to provide services outside the hospital to reduce the pressure on the hospital. In every other city in the UK and Europe there are extensive outpatient domino systems. We only have one small domino system in the whole country. If we want to take pressure off our maternity hospitals and if we have concerns about medical emergencies occurring because of people arriving late — Irish mothers as well as non-national mothers — it is about time the Government started to provide really good resources to those hospitals to cater for the demand.

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