Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Deputy McManus and I certainly survived. Deputy Clune, whom I welcome back to the Dáil, said we should build public beds. We have built the beds. We have ring-fenced 2,500 beds, which have been fully funded by the taxpayer, for the exclusive use of private patients. Does anybody in this House think that is fair? Is it right that we should say that the 2,500 beds which have been provided at the expense of taxpayers can only be accessed by patients with insurance or self-payers? The State pays the nurses who look after the patients in those beds and provides the diagnostic equipment and administrative backup that they need, but it does not allow people to access such public beds unless they are insured patients or self-payers. In implementing this policy, I am trying to provide that 1,000 of the 2,500 beds in question can be used by public patients.

I wish to comment on what will happen when the co-located hospitals are completed. I will talk later about the six hospitals that are involved at the moment — I have the figures in respect of them. The board of Tallaght Hospital agreed unanimously last week to proceed with co-location. The board was not bullied by the HSE. It was asked to decide whether it wished to proceed. I received the approval of the Government for this policy in July 2005. Since then, no hospital has been forced to propose any project. It has been open to individual hospitals to make co-location proposals if they wish to do so. A number of hospitals have done that. I understand that the board of James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown will shortly make a decision on whether it wishes to proceed. That will bring the number of hospitals involved in this process to eight. I am not aware of any further hospitals in this regard. We set out to convert 1,000 private beds for public use. When the co-location facility is in place in all those hospitals, every public bed will be accessed on the basis of medical need and on no other basis. There will be no preferential treatment in the public hospital system for insured patients or self-payers.

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