Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire, Progressive Democrats)

The Department has waited for a long time to have a Minister like her. She has taken to her task with the reforming zeal one would expect from a Progressive Democrats Minister. I would like to discuss two aspects of the Government's amendment to this motion. I refer firstly to what I call the "restoration programme", whereby 1,000 beds in public hospitals which are currently designated for private use will be redesignated for public use. I cannot understand why some Deputies in this House are so opposed to the programme. Deputy Joe Higgins disparaged the proposal this morning, even though it involves the restoration of public beds to the public service for its exclusive use. I fail to understand how it can be referred to as an example of the privatisation of the health service. It is something one would expect the Labour Party to support because it emphatically demonstrates that public beds in public hospitals will only be available for public use.

If an independent or private hospital chooses or is given the go-ahead to lease publicly owned lands and to provide additional services, the pressure is again reduced on the public service. What is wrong with that? It should not be penalised. I fail to understand the criticism that this is the privatisation of the health service. The opposite is the case. This initiative will provide an additional 1,000 public beds. Anybody who has an interest in the Irish health service should applaud it.

Deputy Joe O'Higgins this morning spoke about how private developers would rape and pillage public lands, as it were. He can be assured that a stringent cost benefit analysis will be carried out. In many cases the land will be leased at the going commercial rate so he has nothing to fear in that regard.

Another issue that deserves attention is the extraordinary success of the National Treatment Purchase Fund. It is one of the hallmarks of the Irish health service. The National Treatment Purchase Fund recently published figures from the national patient register which show that patients waiting for the 20 most common operations are now treated within two to five months.

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