Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If Fianna Fáil proved anything during the boom, it definitely proved that throwing money at problems does not necessarily fix and sort them. The Minister and his predecessor have been working within very constrained budgets, as every Department has, and working in that environment has been difficult. Money alone will not fix the problems. I commend the Minister on his progress on the ED task force, reporting implementation, looking at the colonoscopy waiting times, the winter capacity funding of €18 million, the reduction in delayed discharges and a number of measures and plans that are in place and working. Our health care staff in facilities throughout the country are working in challenging circumstances.

Naas General Hospital provides a vital service for all of County Kildare, particularly south Kildare, the area I represent. I commend Alice Kinsella and her team of staff there, and Catherine Hughes, for the fantastic work they do. An endoscopy unit is planned. We cannot get work to begin on it quickly enough. We need extra capacity.

I welcome the 11 extra beds that are coming on line for Naas as well. I invite the Minister to come to see St. Vincent's Hospital in Athy, which is an excellent care facility, at first hand. It is in an antiquated building, but it has an excellent dementia care element and one of the best Alzheimer's units in the country. Even though the hospital building is out of date and has been for a long time, against all the odds this facility achieved its HIQA standard during the summer. That success can be attributed to the staff, from the manager, Helen, all the way down to the porters. It is really a model to be used as an example for the rest of the country in terms of management and staff and everybody working together. Having said that, I admit that a new building is needed. I would like funding to be put in place to allow that to happen as soon as possible. The hospital should not be allowed to slip back down the list.

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