Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

I will start by challenging some of the cynical politics this evening and last night on this motion and in particular its wording. Before I was elected to this House I believed that politics - on any side of the House - was about being constructive. While we all have our viewpoints we should bring something to the table other than criticism. When those criticising were in many cases the people who gave us the difficulties we have and are just telling us what we need to do without acknowledging the financial constraints we have, it is a bit hard to take on this side of the House. I accept our health service faces challenges, but we are also making great progress in how we are dealing with them. I will focus on some areas where great progress is being made.

My local general hospital in Naas, County Kildare, had a major issue with patients waiting on trolleys. If even one person is on a trolley in Naas General Hospital this evening, that is one person too many. However, in the first six months of 2011, some 2,982 people were on trolleys in Naas General Hospital. In the first six months of 2012, that figure had reduced to 1,193, a reduction of 1,789 people on trolleys in the emergency unit in Naas General Hospital, which is 60%. If that is not progress, I do not know what is. Great credit is due to the Minister and his fact-based analysis of where the difficulties are. There have been reductions throughout the country - I took the example of my local hospital and I acknowledge the role the management and staff there played. However, further challenges remain in that regard.

St. Vincent's Hospital in Athy in south County Kildare is a fantastic facility. It is a community hospital that has offered great respite throughout the years and has a long and varied history. It is one of the biggest employers in the town and has an excellent dementia-care unit. I was delighted the Minister came to the hospital and saw at first hand the great level of care the staff and management at St. Vincent's Hospital in Athy give. It recently received HIQA certification for the coming years. As the Minister saw it is an old building with many challenges. However, it got significant investment at a time when money is very scarce to ensure it could get fire certification and all the other boxes were ticked to achieve the HIQA standard. While further challenges need to be faced in the future, progress is being made.

Never before have so many people had medical cards. Catering for those people who need that State support puts great strain on the system. Some 1.8 million have medical cards with 130,000 people having GP-only medical cards. No previous Minister for Health faced a challenge on that scale and yet we are making progress.

There has been a reduction of 8,000 people working in the health system since 2007. The overall health budget has reduced by €2.5 billion in the past three years. Progress is being made in areas such as the special delivery unit over the past 16 months since we came into power and since the Minister, Deputy Reilly, assumed the position of Minister for Health. That any progress has been made in light of those figures is astonishing. However, some challenges in our health service remain to be tackled, including the use of agency workers and nurses. I have previously said in the House that where agency nursing staff are more expensive to hire we should look for some leniency from the troika to allow us to increase our staffing numbers because there are great challenges for permanent nurses who have to work when agency nurses have flexibility to pick and choose their hours.

When I researched the statistics before speaking I was struck that 17% of our health budget is spent on drugs compared with 9% in the NHS. The figure jumped out and we need to investigate it. There must be an enormous cost in the HSE not taking back walking aids, crutches and orthopaedic chairs, and savings could be made in that area. Overall the trolley numbers I mentioned and the work by the special delivery unit in reducing the 12 month waiting list by 95% show real progress. If that is what we have done in 16 months, it will be very interesting to see how the coming years pan out.

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