Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I know that she is not here, but I begin by welcoming the clarification issued by Deputy Bríd Smith on her party's position on an all-Ireland poll.

I will focus my remarks on the health care system. Sinn Féin believes health care services must be developed on an all-Ireland basis. Ideally, we should move from increased co-operation to ultimately full integration of island-wide services. As Deputies are aware, in the past decade there have been developments in cross-Border co-operation, with a number of exciting joint departmental projects being developed. They include work on shared radiotherapy and paediatric cardiac services, health promotion, cancer research, mental health initiatives and suicide prevention. The result of the British referendum is deeply worrying for the future of this co-operation and parents, families and communities are anxious to see its continuation. This is particularly important, given that the new children's hospital will have a state-of-the-art cancer centre which will serve children across the island. However, there needs to be a critical mass of population to make sure the centre will be viable. That critical mass can be achieved only on an all-island basis.

At this time, it is important that we see concerted engagement with the Minister for Health in the Assembly to ensure current and future cross-Border projects are maintained and secured for the future. We cannot rely only on North-South Ministerial Council meetings for this engagement. There should be more regularised contact. Illness, disease and health know no borders and it is important that success in cross-Border projects, in which we have achieved a lot of success, be continued and guaranteed into the future. Earlier this week I was in Brussels as part of a health delegation led by the Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson. It had been arranged prior to the referendum result being known, but it turned out to be a timely engagement. It was a delegation of health professionals, educationists, innovators and stakeholders from the north west health innovation corridor. The project spans the north west and was launched in May 2013 by Martina Anderson, MEP. It is an example of how well cross-Border co-operation can work and it is a positive step towards creating an island-wide health care system. The fear among many in the delegation and the questions being asked of officials from the Commission was how the result of the Brexit referendum would impact on this cross-Border collaboration.

As my other party colleagues have already highlighted during the course of the statements, Brexit is not just a British issue. It is not an issue that will affect just the Six Counties; it will affect people in counties Louth, Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal and beyond. The reality is that cross-Border health care agreements are under threat as a result of the outcome of the referendum. Irish patients have been availing of health services in the North and Britain under the EU cross-Border directive. It meant that where there was an overly long waiting list, people could travel with ease to receive the treatment that they needed. The waiting lists are not going away; neither are the demands. Going North across the Border or across the sea was manageable, but it may become unmanageable. We need to be out in front on this issue and aware of it.

Let us not forget the big elephant in the room: access to termination services. The Government well knows that it and its predecessors have been systematically outsourcing the issue of terminations to our neighbours across the sea. Imagine what a woman with a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality will feel as we see the Border deepen. The services will not be available. The Government cannot and should not continue to outsource this problem, but Brexit will throw up a very serious issue in this regard with a deepening of the Border. We cannot ignore it; the issue has to be dealt with.

We need to hear when the engagement to identify and assess how to minimise any adverse impact on the provision of all-island health services will commence. When will measures be taken to ensure there will be no adverse impact on or logistical challenges to accessibility issues in the case of cross-Border emergency medical transport services? These issues need to be identified. We need to consider how specifically we can all work together. When will the Minister be meeting his counterparts in the North on these issues? When will we see a plan? It is clear that nobody had anticipated the result of the referendum. I do not believe the Government has a plan. I think its plan was to wait and see and hope this would not happen. We need a plan because there are people who need to access services across the Border, who need to know there is a plan and that their future and services are secure.

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