Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I compliment Deputy McManus on proposing this important motion, which relates to one of the central reasons we are here — to improve the quality of life of all our citizens. I am afraid the Progressive Democrats are serial privatisers. That is the sum total of the Progressive Democrats ideology. The approach of the Labour Party in this regard differs fundamentally from that of the Progressive Democrats.

When the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, took over that portfolio two years ago, her major task was to solve the accident and emergency shambles. She published a ten-point plan, which was to bear fruit within six months, but then sank without trace. Two years on, the accident and emergency units in many of our major hospitals are sad places for the old, sick and vulnerable to find themselves as we move into the winter season.

The central part of the Minister's approach is to follow the lead of her Progressive Democrats colleagues, Deputies McDowell and Parlon, who have trawled the land banks and buildings of their Departments to sell property to the highest bidder. The Tánaiste, Deputy McDowell, has disgracefully sold the offices of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in St. Stephen's Green and has moved into rented accommodation, as if it were his God-given right to do so. Likewise, he is preparing to sell the most historic prison in the country, Mountjoy Prison, to the highest bidder without consideration for its heritage or the fact that it is likely to be demolished. The Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, is selling a treasure trove of State assets as part of his decentralisation splurge. He is jacking up the price of land throughout the country as he acquires sites for new offices for people who do not want them. One of the Minister for Health and Children's first acts was to conduct an audit of the land in her Department that might be flogged to the private sector. That was one of her earlier statements.

The mindset of the Progressive Democrats is that State land is real estate to be sold to the private sector, rather than to be protected and developed for future generations of Irish citizens. The new proposal for resolving the accident and emergency crisis and the bed shortage is to develop private hospitals on public lands in public hospitals. Ten such hospitals have been identified and targeted by the Minister. The development of these new private hospitals will be incentivised by tax reliefs which will cost taxpayers approximately €0.5 billion in today's prices. Every €1 spent by speculators and developers will lead to a refund of approximately 40 cent. The Finance Acts of 2001 and 2002 allow the developers of new private hospitals to sell the capital allowances associated with the cost of developing the hospitals to external investors and thereby raise equity in the marketplace. The legislation allows the capital allowances to be made available in respect not only of private hospitals, but also of sports injury clinics, nursing homes and private convalescent clinics. We are not yet finished with this proposal. The Health (Nursing Homes) Amendment Bill 2006, which passed all stages in the Dáil last week, will cause fear and consternation in the minds of elderly, infirm and disabled people whose homes are liable to be sold to pay for their care in nursing homes.

The public health service is quickly becoming a private health service under the stewardship of the current Minister for Health and Children. She believes that all the problems in the health sector can be solved by private sector intervention. The Minister should realise that the objective of the private sector is profit — it will always put profit before people. The State will pay a fortune to promote private sector involvement in health provision while the sector remains unreformed and inefficient. The president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr. Christine O'Malley, put it well in today's The Irish Times, when she was asked, "If you could grant three wishes for the health service, what would they be?". Her response was:

Put doctors and other health professionals back at the heart of health service planning. Develop extra acute hospital beds in acute medical units and ringfence surgical beds to allow GPs to refer directly to hospital wards as they used to be able to do. Make people recognise that despite subsidies, Irish private hospitals remain niche specialists that don't treat A&E patients.

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