Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It took us time to change an old and dated system which originally replaced the local authority-based system. We have amended and centralised the old system into the Health Service Executive. The Government has also made large improvements in the health service along the way. Latest figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show that national uptake rate for polio vaccination is 91%. This is not a poor performance by international standards. I am not in the House to berate Members but to answer questions. However, the Health Consumer Powerhouse study used figures from 1997. That says where we were in 1997, but I will not go into that.

The survey states, when commenting on financial strains in the French health care system, ranked No. 1, the budget deficits in health care are more or less arbitrary and not significant. It is the first time I have ever read that in a report. No Government or taxpayer would agree that it was a matter of indifference whether health care budgets are managed profitably. I answer questions in the House regularly stating this should be dealt with. The survey used wrong figures for acute beds.

I know the order of these matters. Two reports were published yesterday; only one got the headlines. The OECD report used health data for this year. However, that would not suit the case, so the headlines were all about the 1997-99 figures. According to the OECD's Health Data 2006, published on 26 June, health spending has grown faster than gross domestic product in every OECD country except Finland between 1990 and 2004. The data show that health spending in Ireland accounted for 7.1% of GDP. The average spend across OECD countries was 8.9%. In terms of health spending per capita in 2004, Ireland ranked above the OECD average. The report stated:

Health spending per capita in Ireland grew, in real terms, by an average of 9.1% per year between 1999 and 2004, one of the fastest growth rates of all OECD countries and significantly higher than the OECD average of 5.2% per year.

It acknowledges the large increases and improvements introduced by the Government. Perhaps in the interests of balance, those who only read the one report should read the other significant report.

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