Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While we all understand the public finances are under pressure, choices must be made every year as to where funding is to be targeted. The Government has proposed for some time that children aged under six years receive free general practitioner care. Last year, under the guise of probity, decisions were taken which resulted in medical cards being removed from the most vulnerable. I am a realist, but one must target scarce resources at areas where they are most needed.

The previous Minister for Health had a vision and outlined grand plans for universal health insurance and free general practitioner care for everyone. At the same time, however, the Department cut funding for services for the most vulnerable. The key task is to identify how to provide sustainable services in a fair, equitable and compassionate manner. The Minister should forget the idea of pursuing his predecessor's proposals on universal health insurance and free GP care for everybody when we cannot afford to provide basic services for the most vulnerable. His starting point must be to have an honest appraisal of what can be funded and how to do so in a fair and sustainable manner. The idea of making grand promises and subsequently trying to find budgets to fit into them by taking money from the most vulnerable is, to say the least, distasteful.

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