Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

An Bille Sláinte 2004 is an important Bill in that it will have an impact on every citizen in the country. Unfortunately, however, it will not generally be for the better. That is because the Bill represents structural reform born out of a certain amount of panic in Government that health is deteriorating generally, and it needs to maintain some control on the revolution that situation may cause.

There is a lack of accountability in that while the chief executive officer of the new health service executive may appear before the Committee on Health and Children, the chief executive will not be subject to the sort of accountability the House should have from such people in powerful positions. They will have control of extensive public resources. The Green Party will push to have that matter dealt with on Committee Stage.

More telling than that, perhaps, is the way in which the Bill is being guillotined. It contrasts sharply with other legislation that is not being guillotined, such as the Finance Bill. While, in itself, the latter Bill is very important, nonetheless, if one compares the levels of emphasis placed on the Finance Bill and the Health Bill, one can see part of the underlying problem as to why health is ultimately becoming worse. This is evident from the current demand for hospitalisation and health services generally, including medication, not to mention the problems that give rise to such demand.

My colleague, Deputy Gormley, referred to reports that have appeared in a book entitled Growth: the Celtic Cancer, Why the Global Economy Damages Our Health and Society, which was published by the Foundation for Sustainable Economics, Feasta. I found it extraordinary that the Minister for Health and Children dismissed the publication since the matter definitely warrants a more constructive debate than that. The book contains information gleaned from statistics that are in relatively short supply and are difficult enough to collate because they are not interchangeable. The statistics indicate that male suicide increases during economic growth, and point to worsening alcohol consumption, a big increase in alcohol-related offences, schoolchildren becoming heavy drinkers and illegal drug users and the poor getting sicker. Much of this comes down to a widening gap between those who have resources and those who do not. It goes beyond that, however, in that health does not get a look in when we deal with the country's economic welfare. Along with GNP and GDP, health is not measured in that context. The Government needs to address that issue if it is seriously to tackle health problems in future. The Bill will do a certain amount to shift the deckchairs around but it will not ultimately provide for a healthy nation. We must focus on that objective because the Bill represents an end-of-pipe approach, rather than an holistic one.

Deputy James Breen referred to the MRSA bug in a radio interview this morning. His personal experience of the MRSA bug was both difficult and tragic, and indicates that antibiotics will not provide a solution to the problem. We need to be far more mindful of the need for a healthy environment, as much as adopting an end-of-pipe, hospital-based approach.

When it comes to this legislation, most people will be interested in the complaints procedure. I recently met representatives of Patient Focus, a group with much cause for complaint in that the misdemeanours in the health service, which form an ongoing subject of investigation, resulted in between 100 and 130 women having serious problems following questionable and in many cases unwarranted hysterectomies. The legislation should provide for a redress board. It is not sufficient to have a complaints process particularly if one has undergone a procedure that is so traumatic, irreversible and serious that it will have an impact for the rest of one's life. The Tánaiste should act swiftly to include such a redress board to deal with such serious cases alongside the ongoing investigation. The money should come from the medical defence unit as the patients have already had to pay many legal bills. This is a matter of basic justice as well as ensuring such mistakes do not happen again in the future.

I recently attended a lecture on children and health, which clearly showed that what was described as an obesogenic environment is developing in society. Increased numbers of hospital beds and consultants, and increased services and medication will not tackle or even keep up with the problems being created by what many in the health sector call an obesogenic environment. Some token moves have been made to address advertising to children. While the Minister of State was involved in launching the organisation, Sustain, it is clear that we need to consider what has been proposed in the UK, a children's food Bill, to seriously tackle the prevailing trends in marketing of unhealthy food.

The makers of the BBC television programme "Panorama" undertook to see if they could get away with producing unhealthy food. They found little legislation in the area and nothing to stop them producing high sugary food and marketing it as if it would improve one's health and fitness. I believe they called it "fit and fruity". While it was marketed as yoghurt, it was a sugary, sickening and sickness-inducing food, which was produced legally. If such activity continues to be legal we are fighting a losing battle in throwing more money at a health service, which, I agree, has been underfunded for many years. However, it will never be adequately funded as long as we continue to allow such clandestine sickness-inducing activity as producing food that will make people obese resulting in heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, cancers and all the psychological problems of loss of self-esteem and the problems of bullying experienced by obese children. The Minister of State fully understands the problem as we both attended the same lecture.

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