Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

It is demoralising to note the number of times the House has discussed the critical and dysfunctional nature of the Health Service Executive. The HSE impacts on citizens from before the cradle to the grave, starting with the crisis in maternity services. It would be much more cost-effective and better for everybody if we shifted the focus to community and midwifery services.

I will briefly highlight a scenario that calls to mind the Mad Hatter. A small charity, the Jack and Jill Children's Foundation, is propping up the HSE by providing care to vulnerable children with severe disabilities. The foundation does incredibly good work, provides an excellent service, has a track record spanning 17 years, does not have waiting lists and provides services for children on a 24-7 basis. Due to insufficient funding, it is unable to provide services for children before they reach six years, which would correspond with the early years strategy.

There is a crisis in the north Dublin area where three children with severe disabilities are waiting to transition into HSE services. Despite the Jack and Jill Children's Foundation giving ample warning that this scenario was imminent, the three children have been left in limbo and at the mercy and kindness of the foundation, which cannot sustain the additional funding burden into the new year. This is only one example of the dysfunctional nature of the health service and the lack of joined up thinking in it.

It is not true that the Jack and Jill Children's Foundation receives annual funding of €630,000, as is often claimed. It receives slightly more than €500,000 because some of the funding ostensibly provided to the foundation is accounted for by HSE hours that are filtered through the organisation. If we want to improve the health service, we must place a much greater emphasis on community provision and palliative care.

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