Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

We know the history of the HSE and the Minister, particularly in the past year, in terms of providing adequate funding for a variety of areas. I referred to the Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin and other cuts. The HSE is largely responsible for this although the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Finance, which has a major role in deciding what money will be spent in health, are standing idly by while wards are being closed and waiting lists grow longer. There are more people on trolleys in accident and emergency units now than when the Minister said it was a national emergency.

Regarding the Minister standing over the rights of elderly people, she decided she could not introduce the HPV vaccine for young girls in order to protect them from a deadly disease. I do not have confidence in the Minister or the HSE to ensure that there is adequate funding for this scheme. The entitlement under the 1970 Act, which the Ombudsman referred to as an absolute entitlement although the then Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, disagreed with the Ombudsman, has been taken away. It is up to legislators to do what we can and, as members of the Opposition, all we can do is press amendments to ensure that this legislation safeguards the needs of our elderly people so that they do not end up being told, halfway through the year, that they are entitled to a long-stay bed under the support scheme but that the HSE has no money to allow them to take up the entitlement. It is intolerable and I cannot stand over this proposal.

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