Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words about this issue. I acknowledge the work of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, during the short time he has been in his position. There are obvious constraints, but the work he is trying to do is important. It is important to say it is the first time since 2008 that there has been a modest increase in funding. During a time when money was supposed to grow on trees, that is, from 2003 to 2006, and problems accelerated within the health service, more money was thrown at it, but things did not get better. There were still had bed blockages and fundamental problems within the system, but there is now an opportunity to examine the ethos of accountability and responsibility within the health service. Many good people are doing sterling work and have been working within a number of constraints in the past few years. Fundamentally, there has to be a point where there is accountability.

I refer to a sensitive case in Carndonagh, where Mrs. Maura Porter lay dying on a street because there was a problem in getting an ambulance to the scene. The family provided a very stark description of the last few minutes of their mother's life. Rather than spending them with her, holding her hand, they spent them trying to get the emergency services to the scene. That is wrong. Everybody knows that should not happen in a modern society - ambulances were available, but they were not at the scene when they should have been. It was not the case that somebody decided not to go; rather, there were problems with the system. Beds were available and there were ambulances in the county. There is a relationship with Altnagelvin hospital, but there seemed to be a complete and bizarre simple communication malfunction.

A large number of young entrepreneurs are working on computer programmes in both a very sophisticated and simplistic way to try to develop communications and responsible programmes to deliver services to customers in the private sector. One such person in Buncrana has developed a new programme, Click Clinic, which tries to provide communications, using computer technology, for persons who are relying on simple physiotherapy procedures. We need to reach out to a new generation of young people who provide these models to ensure the tragedies and travesties that happened in the past do not happen again. Gartan Technologies which is based in Letterkenny is doing wonderful work throughout the United Kingdom and recently won an Australian contract. It provides communication alert systems for fire brigade and fire services in the greater London area to ensure people are in the position they need to be in at a given time. I cannot begin to get a grip on the magnitude of the Minister's portfolio, but we have to reach out to a new generation who are working on new ways of doing things to counter the negative consequences of a number of tragedies. We now have an opportunity to do this and the Minister is the person to do it.

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