James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There will be no such effort on our part to reduce the care available to children. I am acutely aware from my involvement in medicine that the window of opportunity for best outcomes for children is often quite short and that several procedures may be required over a period of time. Nothing of that nature will be allowed to happen.

In regard to budgets, had we kept to the normal way of doing business every hospital in the country would have required a 3% budgetary decrease. We gave hospitals a reasonable chance of success because many of the budgets in the past were unrealistic and unattainable. The idea that even though a hospital may have been over budget during the previous year it would face a further 3% cut in the current year was not sensible. We moved on to outcomes.

The common governance structure that will apply to the three children's hospitals during the transition will allow them to act as one in procurement and staffing. This will be hugely beneficial in terms of savings. There are fewer staff and less money in the system. Without trying to make political points, Deputy Kelleher and I know that is the case because of the mess his Government left for the country. We want to focus on patient outcomes not on inputs such as how many doctors, nurses or billions of euro are in the system. We want to achieve better outcomes for patients in terms of how many are treated and how long they have to wait. We have improved the number of people who have to endure trolley waits by 24%. Where children are concerned, the improvement in the number who wait 20 weeks or longer is 98%.

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