Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Brian Hayes, on raising this important issue tonight. He made an extremely good maiden speech on the health issue for which I applaud him.

There are many questions raised with this issue. What is the elected mandate in respect of it? As has been stated, the Minister's party has diminished considerably since the proposal was first made. I notice the Green Party, given all that its members have said in recent weeks, is conspicuous by its absence. I can only think of how Deputy Trevor Sargent would have spoken tonight if he was still on these benches. He was very vocal on the issue but his party now seems to have rolled over.

I attended a press conference this morning in the Earl of Kildare Hotel with people from counties Donegal, Carlow and Kilkenny among others who are extremely worried about the co-location and privatisation issues. When one considers the documentation provided for us at the press conference, showing who the people behind these issues are and the type of matters in which they have been involved in the USA, one must ask major questions. For example, how much research or knowledge is available on the matter? Is the Minister fully aware of the background and once again willing to turn a blind eye? Issues in which some of the companies have been involved certainly raise many questions. Why should we hand over taxpayers' hard-earned money, or more accurately, offer tax breaks to such persons?

It is extremely important that the economic and medical justification for this plan be clearly outlined to patients and taxpayers. As I understand it, the Department of Health and Children has not undertaken a detailed and comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to justify it. If it has, it is time the Minister published the analysis and made it absolutely clear from where the benefits will come.

I spent a few short days in the neurological section of Beaumont Hospital last year. I have previously stated in the Dáil that it does not take a genius to uncover the problem. We did not need the Teamwork group report from England or to make any trip to the USA to know that the one issue causing problems for nurses, consultants and everybody else in Beaumont Hospital was not the lack of theatres but the lack of beds. If one had looked out the windows of the hospital, he or she would have seen green fields where buildings could have been quickly constructed to house beds. Any company could build a hotel in a few months; why, therefore, can the Health Service Executive not build facilities to provide extra beds so as to release pressure and allow patients to be operated on?

I know I am not a genius but I could see patients in beds for weeks on end through no fault of a surgeon. Things go wrong but there should be a place where these people could go to allow operations to go ahead and the system to move forward. It is not difficult to provide step-down beds. However, there is a proposal to provide a brand new privately-owned hospital in the grounds of Beaumont Hospital with the offer of the gift of tax breaks to some individuals from the USA or elsewhere who have many questions to answer in their own right.

I cannot help but mention the issue of Monaghan General Hospital. It is clear that the Minister has an agenda to wind down the operation of small rural hospitals and small hospitals elsewhere to provide the so-called need for this private group of hospitals. I have heard people from County Donegal say that they have been told they cannot have cancer treatment services in Donegal but when it is proposed that a private enterprise would provide the required service, there is no problem in delivering it.

We must get real. We must make sure that money is used properly in this area. We must also ensure that proposed investors from outside this country are fully checked before they enter this market to ensure that we will not be caught out as we were with Eircom and others.

See this speech in context