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

After that long diatribe, which is all I would call it, I would be delighted to respond and remind the Deputy across the floor that last year when we were facing a reduction in manpower, he was the one who went shroud waving telling women they would not have a safe health service in which to have their babies and advising cancer patients they would not be able to get the treatments they needed to save their lives. I am happy to inform the Deputy and the House that since that time, thanks to the extraordinary and sterling work of the men and women who work on the front line in our health services, supported by the clinical programmes and by the SDU, we have seen 95% of inpatients at the end of last year treated under the nine-month target and that target is set for eight months this year. We have also seen 95% of inpatient children treated under 20 weeks, 95% plus treated in under 13 weeks for endoscopies; and a 24% reduction in the number of people who had to endure long trolley waits last year with a further 9% reduction this year. There are still too many people waiting and more will be done.

The Deputy said people are getting shrinking services when in fact we have a stroke programme which is saving a life a day now. We have gone from being at the bottom of the league in Europe for thrombolysis, the drug which busts a clot people have in a certain number of strokes, to being at the top of the league. We have a new congestive heart failure care programme. We have a frail older patient care programme for patients who are now admitted to specialist wards where their medical problems can be addressed aggressively and their rehabilitation can begin and as a result fewer and fewer people will end up in long-term care and more people will get home to live independent lives.

The Deputy mentioned the cost of drugs and passed over the €400 million saved in the IPHA deal over the next three years. Those savings will allow us spend €210 million over that period on new life-saving drugs for problems such as cystic fibrosis, malignant melanoma and other cancers. We have passed the drug reference pricing Bill which will now allow for the price of generics - something about which I have been concerned for some time - to fall considerably here.

During our Presidency of the EU we completed the cross-border health threats directive which allows us to join other countries such as the UK, Germany or France when ordering vaccines. A small population like ours does not have the same buying power as bigger nations and that directive will be to the benefit of our people.

We have made real improvements in our health services. We have much more to do and it will be done. We have brought in for the first time the biggest re-organisation of our hospitals through the hospital groups mechanisms which will give us the scale of hospital groups that will allow them to buddy-up with international partners and interest has already been shown in this. We will get much greater scales of economy in terms of management and human resources. It will help us to address our European working time directive, something that is of particular concern to me, and it will also greatly help in attracting and retaining the best of staff as people move to join these bigger groups, rather than smaller hospitals having to struggle to attract personnel who are difficult to attract and sometimes difficult to retain.

I will not accept the proposal and I ask Deputies not to support the proposed deletion of section 12.

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