Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the issue of the health reform programme, the Deputy is aware of the position on that. The Health Service Executive is up and running, and we now have the National Hospitals Office. The third part of the legislation has to go through this House later in the year on the quality issues of health.

The history of the consultants' contract is clear and well-known. Junior hospital doctors, under an EU directive, must have a shorter working week compared to the hours they traditionally worked, which were excessive. We are committed to that. As a result, there will be more consultants in hospitals, a development to which the Government is committed, and the common contract will have to be reformed. The Government is anxious to proceed with negotiations on the common contract but it has not been able to progress the matter as a result of the insurance indemnity issue. It will be impossible to engage the consultants in discussions on the common contract while that issue remains unresolved. Last week, when replying to a question from Deputy Kenny, I outlined the position in respect of insurance indemnity. Industrial action is pending and the Government is seeking to negotiate but there are some things we just cannot do.

We want to negotiate the contract and make progress. It is necessary, in the overall reform of the health area, to make progress. The common contract has not be renegotiated for 25 years and matters in the area of health have moved on to a major extent in the interim. There are now 120,000 full-time and part-time employees in the health service. The position is, therefore, entirely different to that which obtained in the mid to late 1970s when the common contract was negotiated. We want to proceed with the negotiations but we must resolve the insurance indemnity issue in the first instance.

I answered questions on child poverty recently. We have made substantial progress. However, the two recent reports, NESC's household survey and that carried out by the CSO, identified the areas on which we need to target our efforts for the future. The line Ministers will take action in that regard. This is not only a matter for the Department of Social and Family Affairs, it is also a matter for the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Children. These Departments must focus on how we can best deal with those areas which the reports continue to show as having——

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