Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy should listen to the point he made. His point was that people are in beds too long because facilities are not available. My response is that the reason for that is that the work practice for years has been that the services close at 4 p.m. or 4.30 p.m. The Government has been trying to change this so the units can remain open till 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. We will pay the staff and work with them to come to an agreement so patients do not have to remain in beds.

We have advanced the situation over nine years and whereas we had very few day cases, we now have hundreds of thousands of day cases and these people do not have the trauma of staying in hospital overnight. We brought in more consultants and hundreds of doctors to do this, but essential reforms are still needed.

The Deputy asked about the common contract for consultants. This issue is moving at a snail's pace, not because of the actions of the Department of Health and Children, the Government or the HSE, but because the consultants have a very good position. We want them to move through meaningful negotiation and do not want to take money from them. We know they are well paid, good and experienced people and do not want to take money from them. We only want to bring in necessary reforms to make the system work better. That is all we want to do. We want to engage with them. The Deputy asked me about the letter they sent back saying they would not engage with us. We just want to deal with them, as we would with any association or trade union so we can make progress with the patients the Deputy and others are concerned about.

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