Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I have listened to many of the Minister's replies recently. He has referred to dealing with this at an individual hospital level. However, the problem must be dealt with across the spectrum. I fully agree with Minister about a mismatch in services. This is obvious not only in front line services in hospitals but in other services such as speech and language therapy and occupational therapy services. There may be long waiting lists in one place and shorter waiting lists in another. One cannot simply move a person from Cork to Donegal if they have no wish to go but what if that is where the mismatch arises? I fully accept that there are different requirements whether for intensive care or accident and emergency departments. I fully accept the point made by the Minister in this regard. However, this is and should be measurable in terms of the historical information about the level of patient care in each department in a given hospital and the number of beds. I do not understand why a more targeted approach was not taken in respect of the redundancy package. It could have delivered a better outcome.

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