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

I welcome the contributions from all Deputies to the debate. I find it extraordinary that the Deputies opposite and the Minister criticised me for tabling this motion because what I am doing is stating the obvious. I am stating clearly that in December 2014 we will have a problem going into January 2015 in terms of the delivery of this country's health services simply because we do not have adequate funding in place to ensure we can underpin the basic services in the year ahead. As has been outlined by Deputy Fleming and others, it is not just Fianna Fáil that is saying that. The director general of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, stated it at the launch of the HSE service plan for 2015 when he was categorical in stating that the funding being provided would not be sufficient to cater for certain areas, particularly day case procedures and outpatient appointments.

While listening to the debate today I wandered onto a Fine Gael website and looked at the fair care proposals outlined by the Minister's party in advance of the general election and it is extraordinary that some of the targets it was criticising have now been well passed in terms of waiting lists, waiting times and issues with regard to the fair deal scheme, as pointed out by Deputy Fleming. It has gone backwards in many cases and what is more disturbing is that it has gone backwards in terms of the priorities it set.

A woman rang my office this week. She is in her late 70s. Her husband is in his 80s. He was in a nursing home. He has Parkinson's disease. She had to take him out of the nursing home because she simply cannot afford the nursing home costs while she is waiting for a fair deal bed to be made available. That is what is happening. These are not isolated cases. We are not making them up. These are happening day in, day out in the context of elderly people in our communities throughout the country.

As to the idea of a 20 week waiting list, that is an elderly person waiting 20 weeks for a bed, often at end of life time. We hear that the nursing homes support scheme will be improved next year and that extra funding has been made available, and we talk about a target of ten to 12 weeks. In key areas the Minister has to prioritise and I suggest looking at that particular area of the HSE service plan in terms of funding for the fair deal scheme, and also in the other key area with regard to waiting lists for day case procedures. It is simply unacceptable that we are now talking about 50,000 people waiting, and 380,000 people waiting for an outpatient appointment.

Many plaudits have been laid at the Minister's door because of his honesty and his upfront approach to the issue and the challenges facing him but to say the least, this budget is dishonest because it will not be able to sustain what it outlines. Deputy Fleming referred to some of the areas where the Minister spoke about savings being accrued and extra income streams, but some of those will not happen.

When we consider the overall context of what the Government has done in the past three years in terms of budgets, it gives us no hope or confidence that it will be able to deliver this plan with the funding underpinning it. That is the reason we highlight it on a continual basis.

It has been said that the Minister has a better bedside manner than the previous Minister. There is no doubt about that but the diagnosis and the prognosis will be the same for the patient and in this context, the patient being the HSE itself, it will not be able to deliver on what it is trying to achieve because the Government is being disingenuous in terms of the public relations spin being put forward that somehow extra money has been delivered to the HSE service plan this year. When demographic changes and the aspirations in terms of savings and income are taken into account, the Minister is starting with a deficit next year again before we even start. I can assure the Minister that if we are all here this time next year, we will be in this House again talking about a supplementary Estimate because the service plan will not have been able to achieve what it set out to achieve.

I thank the Deputies who spoke on this motion. I reject the criticisms from the other side of the House that it was put down for no other reason than to have a debate on health. It is critical that the Opposition Members highlight the failings of this Government in terms of basic funding. We are not asking for anything over and above that. I commend the motion and I ask Deputies to consider when they set down that this particular budget will not sustain delivery of health services in 2015 as stated by the Deputies opposite.

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