Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday we saw new information released on the latest position regarding hospital waiting lists in this country. If the figures from the three lists are added up, there are currently 623,442 persons on waiting lists in our health service, which is one in eight of the population. On the Government's target of having everybody on those lists seen to within 18 months, the European health consumer index said, "Even if and when that target is reached, it will still be the worst waiting time situation in Europe." It surveyed 35 countries and Ireland is in 35th position and bottom of the league table for waiting times in Europe. What is to be done?

The National Association of General Practitioners said that in recent years, under both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil-led Governments, €980 million has been taken out of primary health care. That is almost €1 billion taken out by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led Governments. Those cuts must be reversed. It is common sense that if there is a good strong primary health care system, there will be fewer waiting lists for the hospitals. One of the consultants interviewed on the "Prime Time" programme made very sharp points about the strict, fixed budgets hospitals are operating under. Apart from the human side of it, it is a completely false economy because if someone cannot be seen when they are in need of some surgery, they will be seen down the line when they are in need of more serious and more expensive surgery. That is leaving aside all the check-ups, appointments and administration that has to be done with longer lists. We need more front-line staff and better wages and working conditions. Who is fighting for that? The nurses are fighting for it. That is why their industrial action will begin on 7 March. Anyone who is seriously concerned about improving the health service and sorting out the issues of recruitment and retention will give their full support to our nurses as they enter that dispute.

John McManus of The Irish Timessaid recently, "Irish health spending is very close to the European average but, unlike most of our peers, one-third of it is channelled through the private healthcare system." Referring to perverse incentives within the system he said, "The worse the public system, the more profitable the private system." That is the scandal of the two-tier health system in this country. One third of all acute hospitals and one sixth of all acute hospital beds are now fully private. How many of these beds are empty? We do not know because the private hospitals will not give the information. They say it is commercially sensitive. We know a significant number of those beds lie empty at most times. What does the National Treatment Purchase Fund do? It penalises the public health service by diverting funds away from our public system. It subsidises and bails out the private hospital for having excess capacity and beds within its structures. This is a nonsense and it needs to change.

The private hospitals in this country should be taken into public ownership with compensation only on the basis of proven need and integrated into a fully fledged Irish national health service. There have been 1,600 beds taken out of the public system, as Deputy Gino Kenny explained. That would bring 2,100 beds back in by compensating for the beds that have been cut out of the system by both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil-led Governments since 2007. My key messages are that we need better recruitment and better retention and to support the nurses in their industrial action in March. We need the nationalisation of the private hospitals, to integrate them into the public health system and finance and resource a proper Irish national health service. The time is long gone. That is what we need.

See this speech in context