Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I wish to thank Deputy Reilly for tabling this motion. We have the highest incidence of cystic fibrosis in the world, and the most severe type, yet we allocate the poorest resources in Europe to dealing with it. Five or six years ago, I remember raising the case of a young man in Kerry whose brother-in-law was a constituent of mine. He was awaiting a lung transplant but that young boy has since died because he did not get the required operation. We are now in 2009, but we still do not have a transplant office within the Health Service Executive to provide a framework to implement the independent processes needed to enhance the quantity of lungs available for transplant. That has not happened in that length of time and we still have some patients going to Newcastle. There have been some improvements in terms of being able to facilitate operations here, but our overall attitude to cystic fibrosis sufferers has not improved and last week's actions do not show any improvement.

Despite the current budgetary context, we had 12 years during which this situation could have been improved. The Minister was in office for all of those 12 years. Last week, she looked in the eye young people who know they will have a much shorter life expectancy that the rest of us. They were told they would have to wait longer, but they do not have time to wait.

Our health staffing levels are seriously inadequate, we have an unbalanced service which is thinly distributed and we have too many small units. The biggest issue for cystic fibrosis patients is a lack of isolation facilities. The Pollock report, which was published in 2005 when we still had money and were wasting it - I think it was around the time we announced decentralisation - said that all cystic fibrosis patients should be in single, en suite toilet facilities to prevent the transmission of dangerous organisms. However, nothing was done about it at that stage.

I hope the Minister's commitment this week will come to pass so that the unit will be provided within the stated timeframe. I am sceptical about it, but I hope it happens. In the meantime, what will the Minister do about the six interim beds that were promised? Some 14 in total were meant to be delivered by the end of summer 2008, so will they come on-stream in the meantime? Can the Minister give a clear commitment that the unit will be delivered in the stated timeframe?

I have often heard the Minister say that there is no low-hanging fruit in health and I appreciate that because it is a difficult portfolio. Looking back at what happened in Portlaoise in autumn 2007 and listening to "Morning Ireland" today about what went on in Ennis, at least those awful things could be described as system failures. They were scandalous but it was much more difficult to say they occurred because of a choice that was made. In this instance, however, it is about choices. I am glad the Minister did a U-turn on the decision to cancel that unit. The choice that was made last week said, more or less, that 25 more young CF sufferers will definitely die this year, given last year's statistics. I do not know what it is like to grow up being aware that if I had the good fortune to live a few miles up the road in Northern Ireland I would live at least ten years longer. I do not know how that feels, but I do know from speaking to Orla Tinsley and families and patients with cystic fibrosis how they feel. I ask the Minister to try to remember that when she is making decisions and choices in this respect.

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