Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have received a report from the HSE on the numbers of operations and procedures that have been cancelled or postponed in public and voluntary hospitals to date in 2016. Deputy Billy Kelleher tabled those questions. It is striking that there have been more than 5,500 cancellations of operations in the first six months of the year. It is illustrative of the runaway train waiting lists in public and voluntary hospitals have become during the past two years. It points to the urgency required on the part of the Government to establish and ring-fence substantial funding for the National Treatment Purchase Fund to reduce waiting lists and times for operations and avoid cancellations. Although the former Minister was setting his face against the initiative, it is very important that an urgent intervention be made to stop the runaway train that is waiting lists and times. It is part of the programme for Government.

There was also a commitment in the programme for Government to increase the funding for home care packages and home helps every year. Although it was included in the last programme for Government, we all know that they were cut. We must be careful about what a programme for Government states, given that they can be fictional at times. There is concern among constituents that a cap has been put on the number of home helps. Will the Tánaiste bring clarity to the issue for me? Is she aware if there is a cap on home help hours or home care packages? Will she ask the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, to come back to us on the issue? It flies in the face of a commitment in the programme for Government to increase the funding for home care packages and home helps.

The Protected Disclosures Act provides that public bodies such as Departments, local authorities and certain other publicly funded bodies are obliged to establish and maintain procedures for the making of protected disclosures by workers who are or were employed by them and for dealing with such disclosures. Public bodies must provide their employees with written information on these procedures. They must also publish an annual report setting out the numbers of protected disclosures made to them and the action taken. Will the Tánaiste outline whether her Department or An Garda Síochána have published their annual reports and, if not, when she expects to receive them?

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