Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As this is the first time I have spoken in the House since the general election, I thank the people of the Limerick County constituency for returning me for a second time to Dáil Éireann in what was a difficult election. I was very honoured to be re-elected to represent my constituency. I thank everybody who helped and supported me, including my family, canvassers and supporters. Without such help, neither I nor anybody else would have been elected.

Regardless of who has been in government, health has been an issue on the political agenda since the late 1970s. There has been a lot of talk of Dáil reform and new politics here over the past few weeks, which is very good. It is great to see a bit of interest in trying to reform the Dáil but the advocates of reform are the same people who tramp in and out of here and try to apportion blame to everybody without looking at the actual health situation. I have been following politics since I was a child and health has always been an issue, including in the 1980s and the 1990s when there were various scandals. It was inevitably going to be an issue when the economy crashed and the country was wrecked. Coming in to apportion blame to one individual or government is not necessarily what people want, particularly as those who do that also advocate a new way of doing politics. We have to consider this with a degree of honesty. The money simply was not available in the past few years to do what we wanted to do. Nobody wants to see problems in the health services. There are, however, some glimmers of hope. Leaving aside the acute accident and emergency situation which has bedevilled every region, there are many positive things happening, particularly in the area of community care.

There is a great opportunity for more to be done in community care. In my region, without any foresight, thought or plan, Nenagh, Ennis and St. John’s accident and emergency services were taken out by a previous government. No provision was made in the accident and emergency department in the regional hospital in Limerick which is now the University Hospital Limerick. It was left that way for several years until this Government decided to do something about it. Now that has been done, there is huge pressure on the accident and emergency unit in Limerick which has a knock-on effect on our community hospital network in Clare, North Tipperary and Limerick. If we could relieve the pressure in the accident and emergency department by having a greater level of discharge from the University Hospital to community-based units in Newcastle West, Thurles, Limerick, Nenagh, Ennis and across West Clare, it would be of major benefit. Significant capital investment has gone into St. Ita’s Hospital in Newcastle West and there are plans for St. Camillus Hospital in Limerick, but we need to see more of this and at a faster rate because there is an opportunity to relieve it.

I represent probably the most rural constituency in the Dáil, with no town of a population of over 7,000 people. I spoke recently to members of the National Ambulance Service which covers enormous areas in rural counties. During the heyday of the so-called Celtic tiger, no real investment was made in ambulance stations around the country. They are in dire need of capital investment. We also need more of them because of the areas they cover and because the delays in accident and emergency departments are too long. The turnaround is too sharp. Some people wait over an hour for an ambulance to come from Limerick, Tralee or Mitchelstown to places across County Limerick. That needs to be urgently addressed.

Over recent years in this House I have drawn attention to another Cinderella subject, orthodontic care, a matter in which very few people, apart from Deputy Carey and I and one or two others, have shown any interest. This has been languishing on the dust-ridden shelves of the Department of Health for a long time. There is a dire need for some sort of overall strategy to make sure that children across the country who are waiting for badly needed orthodontic care get it. The same is true of many childhood issues which are not topical for many. Maybe there are not as many votes in them as there are for the bigger issues people have already discussed here.

The health issue has been around for a long time and several Ministers for Health have experienced a horrendous time in the Department. A predecessor of the Leader of the Opposition did not refer to the Department as Angola for no reason. It is a very difficult place to be put into, and I wish anybody who goes in there well. If the ethos and concept of Dáil reform is that we are all going to put our arms around each other and do the right thing for the country, we could start with this debate on health. Rather than blaming one person, we could think collectively about what could have been done and what we can all do.

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