Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this serious issue tonight. I am staggered and amazed that the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children is not here to answer the questions being raised by the elected Members of the people of Cork and Kerry. Her absence shows both arrogance and contempt for those people. Effectively, she is giving the two fingers to the fears, anxieties, worries and concerns of the people of the region, who are very upset by what was disclosed through the letter of Dr. Seamus O'Reilly on last Monday's Irish Examiner.

That letter outlined in graphic detail the crisis in cancer care in the Munster region and the ongoing delays in rolling out the national breast cancer screening programme in south Munster. The details of the letter were upsetting and disturbing, but not surprising because many of us involved in public life have been aware of the appalling and unacceptable situation for quite some time, right across the services. Many of us have raised these matters in the Dáil on more than one occasion.

The Government has attempted to place the heavy hand of secrecy on the details of how our health services operate. The abolition of the health boards and the axing of public representatives from the health services have helped create a veil of secrecy over much of what is happening.

The fact that a consultant oncologist working for a population of half a million people had to write to the Minister for Health and Children shows how desperate the situation is. To add insult to injury, the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday, in response to serious questions posed to him by the Leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Kenny, tried to defend the indefensible and attempted to explain away his Government's appalling record of undelivered promises in the southern region.

Mr. O'Reilly's letter stated that patients had been left to die at home because there is no room for them in hospitals, and when in hospitals they have been subjected to third world conditions. The Taoiseach also tried to rubbish my claim that there is a two-year waiting list for mammograms. If I have time I will read into the record a letter I received this week from the director of hospital services in the southern region to a parliamentary question I submitted to the Minister for Health and Children about a particular patient. The Tánaiste did not reply to the question, but passed the buck to the Health Service Executive from which I got a response much later. I was aware that the person, who had been referred for a mammogram by her general practitioner, had been told that she would have to wait two years for her mammogram. The response to my question confirmed that.

This highlights again the apartheid that exists in our health services where, if people can pay, they will get almost immediate attention, even in our public hospitals. However, if they are, unfortunately, dependent on the public health service, they will be told to wait in line, often for many years. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children must explain the long delay in introducing the BreastCheck programme in the southern region. Unfortunately, she is not here this evening, although I would have expected her to be. She must publicly state that she accepts personal responsibility as Minister for Health and Children for the appalling conditions described by Dr. Seamus O'Reilly. She should be here to apologise publicly to the families who have lost loved ones and those who have suffered severely because of the inadequacies in the services described by Dr. O'Reilly. In accepting full responsibility for what has happened, she should set out a definite timetable for the upgrading of the services.

The Taoiseach must also, during his visit to Cork next weekend, meet Dr. Seamus O'Reilly so that he can hear at first hand the details of the upsetting conditions at the Cork University Hospital. A meeting with Dr. O'Reilly would bring the Taoiseach back to reality as he is at present living in a world of spin and denial that comes from being too long in high office.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to read into the record the contents of the letter I mentioned, but it is available for scrutiny, if anybody wishes to read it.

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