Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the adjournment of the debate on 22 June, I made a point about sections 38 and 39 bodies not being addressed in the report and that there would be future reports on the matter.

I made the point that we would have to deal with that at a later stage. We have moved on a lot since 22 June. The commitments made by the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach on the all-party Sláintecare proposals on health cannot be taken with anything other than a grain of salt. We are now 21 weeks on from that debate in the Dáil. The report was laid before the House in May. Sláintecare is a ten-year plan to implement a properly funded, universal health care system similar to the NHS. It will not be implemented if the Department of Health is in charge of the process. The Department is littered with abandoned reports and policy documents on reform. If the mandarins do not want something, they kill it by sitting on it, setting up a committee and hiring consultants until it is forgotten that there was a report. The fact that the report was laid before the House on 31 May and that we are only coming back to it in November reflects the same attitude in Government.

Sláintecare was very specific for that reason. The report recommended an implementation office in the Department of the Taoiseach, rather than the Department of Health, to be fully funded by October 2017. It recommended that a highly independent lead executive be appointed by July 2017. This post has not even been advertised yet. It recommended that the post would be equivalent to a secretary general. We now believe it will be two levels below that, much to the delight of the powers that be in the Department of Health. These are two key recommendations and they have been ignored. The implementation office is to be in the Department of Health and has not yet been set up. A consultancy group has been hired, no doubt at huge cost, and an assistant secretary general from the Department is to chair a steering group. This is all the usual stuff.

As well as an independent lead executive and an implementation body outside the Department, Sláintecare requires additional investment of at least €600 million a year on top of the normal funding. Budget 2018 provides nothing to deal with it. It does not provide one red cent to deal with the implementation of Sláintecare. Without Sláintecare and without the necessary leadership, oversight and increased investment, we will continue to have a two-tier unequal service which provides extremely poor access to poor health care at a very high cost. I listened to the debate yesterday with the Minister on the increased cost to the health system. He said that he needed to have outcomes as well. This Sláintecare report was, is, and can be the outcome. The Government will fail on this issue if it does not implement the report in the form the all-party committee recommended.

I have seven seconds left and will make one more point. This is world chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, week. It has not really been addressed in the Dáil and I think it should be. COPD groups are in Sligo today and they will be in Cork tomorrow. I encourage people to attend their events.

See this speech in context