James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Not for the first time Deputy Ó Caoláin attempts to confuse the issue. The service plan was written before all the retirements had actually taken place. For him to state now that another 550 odd people will leave Dublin and north-east health services is utterly inaccurate. We have to see how many have already left from that number. As we know, 4,500 - 4,515 to be absolutely precise and the figure I used at the committee – have already left. I am not in a position to say how many of the 550 count among the 4,515, but many do. To suggest that 550 are still required to leave would be misleading.

I have no intention of setting a date for the lifting of the embargo. When considering how many people have left the health service since 2007, one must bear in mind how many joined in the preceding five years, some 25,000 plus or perhaps even more. I do not have the figures before me. At a time when we quadrupled our spend on health and increased the number of personnel working in the sector, we did not reform the service in the manner necessary to deliver care to our citizens.

January 2011 saw the highest number of people, some 569, lying on trolleys since counts began by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO. I gave an undertaking at the time that the situation would not recur. Thanks to the hard work of front line staff, the special delivery unit, SDU, and the clinical programmes, this has been achieved right through March and in the teeth of extraordinary challenges, for example, the €2.5 billion removed from the health budget in the past three years, the moratorium and the 4,515 personnel who left last month. This situation has not been helped by Deputy Ó Caoláin in this Chamber talking about doom and gloom and the catastrophe and disaster about to befall people, and upsetting those awaiting cancer treatment or the birth of their children. Childbirth should be a joyous event. A certain degree of anxiety is always associated with it but additional anxieties should never be added to it by scaremongering, something that the Deputy has engaged in more than once in the House.

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