Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I will be very brief.

What has emerged in the programme is a hybrid system. There is to be funding through insurers and funding through a hospital insurance fund. Hospital services will be planned by a State body and by insurers. Services are to be integrated and stand alone. This is to happen with almost no increased resources and a major cut in staffing.

Also, in a quite incredible example of taking extra power into political hands, the programme explicitly and without qualification states that the Minister for Health will decide which hospitals will be kept open. What is promised is at best a dangerous experiment. It threatens progress in the many areas where treatment numbers and outcomes have improved. It is based on wildly unrealistic financial assumptions. It is a policy which stems from wanting a neatly contained election idea rather than a real strategy for improving health services.

One thing which concerns me is the failure to include within the programme-----

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