Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One should never ask the fox to carry out an inspection of the fence around the hen house, but that is what the Minister is doing in respect of the Department of Health on this occasion. It is a policy decision of the Department of Health to bring forward the 2013 Act, which allows for a designation of all beds in public hospitals for private patients. There is no doubt, even in the context of budgets being forced on hospitals, that there are now stretched budgets, which have effectively been put in place to force hospitals to maximise the number of private patients going through their hospitals for billing purposes and to bolster budgets. Stretched budgets are in their stated policy. We have asked all the hospitals about this but they all deny that this is what a stretched budget is. However, we know for a fact that the stretched budget primarily entails private patients being treated in public hospitals, and there is concern about this. I do not have any truck with the private health care providers; my representation here is on behalf of public patients who are potentially waiting longer to access treatment because beds are full of private patients in public hospitals.

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