Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

Tá áthas orm cúpla nóiméad a fháil chun labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. It is welcome to return to the House following the general election, during which, as we knocked on doors in our various constituencies, health featured as a particularly prominent issue with the electorate — it certainly did so in Kildare South, as I am sure it did in many other constituencies.

It is appropriate that one of the first issues we get to address on Private Members' time is health related. However, I must join my colleague Deputy Charlie O'Connor in chiding the Fine Gael Party on bringing forward the motion in this format at this time. I suspect he is right in saying that what Fine Gael is about is an attempt to embarrass the Green Party, our new partners in Government. Rather than attempt to embarrass the Green Party, Fine Gael should, perhaps, look to it for guidance on how to be a constructive Opposition party. Over the course of the past five years in the House, I was conscious of the number of occasions on which the Green Party used its Private Members' time to bring forward constructive legislative proposals. Perhaps if Fine Gael had adopted a more positive approach during the past five years and the general election, it would not find itself languishing on the Opposition benches. It is clear from the motion that Fine Gael has learned no lessons. After finding itself on the Opposition benches six elections in a row, the Fine Gael motto now appears to be "If it is broke, don't fix it".

Fine Gael used to have some interesting points to make on health. This was before it signed up to the bogus Labour Party accusation, as enunciated trenchantly and vehemently by Deputy Michael D. Higgins, that the Government is privatising the health service. On 4 May 2004 the Fine Gael health spokesman said: "It is only with the introduction of competition that we can capture for patients the benefits of the market". He went on to say:

I do not expect that this will happen overnight or indeed that competition and private provision is the solution to all healthcare provision, but I believe it is in the direction in which we must go.

However, this evening Fine Gael asserts that moving 1,000 private beds from public hospitals is privatisation.

I support the amendment to the motion and Government policy as enunciated by the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, who has been an outstanding Minister in this area. Its central objective remains the freeing of publicly funded beds for public patients. The co-location initiative will achieve 1,000 new public beds quickly and more cost effectively, ensuring better access to acute hospital services for public patients. I heard this demand from constituents throughout County Kildare over the past weeks and months. We want to achieve a situation where there is no two-tier entry into publicly funded hospitals, as has been the case for many years. We do not want to continue the current system forever, under which public hospitals and consultants are paid more for private patients than public patients for treatment in our tax-funded public hospitals. It is not privatisation to free beds for all patients, public and private. Nor is it privatisation to ask the private sector to finance and manage private beds and private hospital services.

Private or independent hospitals here are not new. Indeed, it seems Fine Gael supports them as long as they are not on the same site as public hospitals. Private care has always been an integral part of our health care services and is not confined to one service or a group of people in one locality. The Mater Private, St. Vincent's Private Hospital, the Blackrock Clinic, the Bon Secours group and, in my constituency, Clane General Hospital have been embedded and accepted in health care provision for many years. I reject the suggestion, so eloquently but so mistakenly put forward by Deputy Michael D. Higgins, that this represents some form of racket. I assure him that people who choose to avail of the services in those hospitals do not consider themselves as participating in a racket.

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