Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to address this motion. While the specifics of the motion are particular to a section within the health service, the sentiment behind it and the approach taken in the House by the Opposition follow what has come to be a common pattern in recent weeks and months. The Opposition identifies a service facing budgetary pressure - what public delivered service funded by the State does not face such pressure? - succeeds in whipping up a frenzy, selects a number of individual cases and seeks to evoke a sense of shock and awe at these and then proceeds as if these are the fault of the Government.

The Opposition fails to identify the exceptional work done on behalf of so many patients on a daily basis. By isolating a small number of cases in individual and particular circumstances, the Opposition seeks to portray these as the way in which the health service is delivered. This does a disservice to the phenomenal work done by the health service and the people who work on the front line. It is wrong to present these cases as the norm. The Opposition offers its solution, but its solution, which it comes up with on a weekly basis for all these areas it identifies, is not to tax but to spend more money to resolve the problem. It ignores its own so-called budgetary strategy, that great alternative strategy it is prepared to put forward.

Whatever the issue is - tonight it is Crumlin hospital but it will be something else next week - the same solution emerges, put up and spend more money. The Opposition will not agree with any of the taxation measures the Government has brought forward nor with any of the methods of raising funds to take account of the losses in Revenue. The Minister has made the situation clear and we are all well aware of the cost of the provision of the health service, over €15 billion a year. We are raising taxes this year of between €33 billion and €34 billion and will borrow €20 billion. We cannot ignore that.

Budgetary strategy talks about cost containment and reducing costs through efficiency. The solution to the problem in Crumlin hospital is to find efficiencies through closer co-operation between the three hospitals in the network, Tallaght, Temple Street and Crumlin. The front-line staff in these hospitals work extremely hard. I believe there is a management issue. Everyone talks about plugging the black hole within the health budget. That means change and closer co-operation. It means smarter and more efficient ways of working to deliver that service.

Phenomenal advances have taken place in medical technology and in the way in which doctors go about their business during operations. Patients spend much less time in hospitals. Notwithstanding that, the cost of delivering this level of service has increased considerably, but there are much better outcomes.

We have to look at ways to manage delivery more efficiently, through closer co-operation of services and bringing them under one umbrella. In resolving a problem like this it is not unusual that one would find some resistance to change. The technology, medical practice and better outcomes are available and now the service delivery component has to change to ensure the most efficient use can be achieved from the money that is available.

I am somewhat taken aback by Deputy Stagg's statement tonight, when he referred to the Government bailing out the banks and the builders, and that the money involved in that could be better used to resolve the problems in Crumlin Hospital. It is an outrageous concept to put forward. It shows no regard for the basic understanding of how this has come about.

The boom years were created, perhaps wrongly, by the builders and bankers, but by creating the boom, which generated more wealth for the economy and increased the amount of money that came into the coffers of the State-----

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