Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The reality is that the Government stands over a two-tier health system which it sponsors and nurtures. That is having a grievous impact on the plight of public patients including those who are very ill. For the most part private hospitals do not cater for the very ill. They cherrypick the profitable procedures and the very sick and those requiring high maintenance are directed back into the public health system.

In recent weeks, everyone became familiar with the gut-wrenching case of a Kilkenny mother who was obliged to wait eight months for her colon to be examined. That delay will cost the woman in question her life. This is the reality faced by people who are not wealthy and who are dependent on a proper public health system.

Did it ever occur to the Taoiseach that there is a good reason that the section of consultants who want to operate in the private health system cannot take the Minister for Health and Children seriously when she lectures them on the need for a public-only contract? Such lectures on her part ring hollow because she is doing everything in her power to shift an increasing level of resources into the private hospitals where these consultants wish to operate at the same time as having contracts to work in public hospitals. The metaphor of the fox lecturing the members of the pack for casting their eyes over the henhouse comes to mind, particularly in light of the fact that the Minister has already directed the fattest chickens in that direction. Now she is telling consultants that they cannot move in this direction because she wants them to remain in the public sector. It is important to note — this is sometimes overlooked — that doctors are committed to public-only health care.

The problem does not relate to the quality of health care or the dedication of those who work in the service, but to access and capacity. The Taoiseach did not indicate the date on which the full complement of 3,000 beds will be provided and I want him to do so. Is it not pathetic, when it is clear that the population is burgeoning, that the HSE is only now discussing carrying out of a survey? Have the HSE and the Government been asleep for the past several years? When will that survey take place and when will an accurate number of additional beds required by our increasing population be provided?

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