Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

The Deputy, if he is being fair, must acknowledge the substantial progress that has been made in the delivery of health services, particularly in regard to day case activity which has virtually doubled since 2000. In regard to the service plan, the main element of the change is that 33,000 fewer people will be admitted to hospital in the first place. Those people will either receive hospital-in-the-home services or be provided with diagnostic access without requiring hospital admission. As Professor Drumm has pointed out, a large proportion of those who go into hospital are there for less than 48 hours; in some cases it is less than 24 hours. It is well established that many of these people do not need to be hospitalised but are admitted in order to access diagnostics and so on. Those types of services will be provided in an alternative way.

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