Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this Sinn Féin motion. We all know that the solution is not one based on information technology, software or even better administration. The health crisis and the lengthy waiting lists are not caused by unfortunate incidents that somehow result in thousands of citizens being left to languish on lists for an eternity but are the result of political decisions that prioritise certain interests over others. Decisions taken in here by this and previous Governments led by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael have promoted privatised health care over and above health care for the public. Successive governments put recruitment bans in place during austerity, cut hospital bed capacity repeatedly and accepted and enthusiastically enforced neoliberal management models that saw a mushrooming of management structures and a diminishing of front-line services. We have a public health system that is designed to fail to frighten people into taking out private health insurance. The guarantee people get by taking out such insurance is that they will be seen first and will get a diagnosis faster than would be the case if they remained in the public health system. The private system and the profits that accrue to it would not be possible if we did not have a failing public system.

A person born into a lower socio-economic group has, on average, four years less to live than someone from an upper professional group. The higher rates of lung, stomach and cervical cancers in deprived areas mean that there is a lower chance of survival. The real scandal is that these facts have been known to us for a very long time but the political establishment deliberately devised health policies which exacerbate rather than reduce the health divide, not to mention the class divide. There is no strategy to increase the life expectancy of the poorest groups in Ireland. The health system encourages a certain sector to profit from human misery.

We can scratch our heads and seek solutions here but we must start by accepting that cuts to the pay and pensions and increases in the working hours of front-line staff, including nurses, do not help. We can wax lyrical in here about the great efforts being planned by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and the Government, but the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, will come into the House next week and tell us that we still have a financial emergency. He will then pass the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation for another year which maintains inequality and division and keeps public servants working in hospitals and other areas of our health service on lower rates of pay.

I want to deal with an issue that is not covered in the motion but which is very familiar to many parents, namely, the dire situation with regard to assessments of needs for children. Just 25% of needs assessments were completed by the HSE within the three-month timeframe provided for in the regulations. The target is 100%. A High Court judge made an order earlier this month giving the HSE between six to eight weeks to complete assessments of health needs for 12 children with suspected autism and other conditions. One example of the profound and telling effect of this failure is a three year old lad called Carter Keogh from the Coombe . He was seen by his GP seven months ago. He was then seen by a developmental paediatrician and referred on to the very badly named early intervention team. His parents were told that they would have an appointment at the end of 2019. It is not rocket science to figure out that the earlier an intervention happens with children like Carter, the better the outcome. As soon as a diagnosis is made, then getting the intervention of a speech therapist, a psychologist and other intensive front-line services that are required can make a real difference to this young boy's life and that of his family, but the State is completely failing thousands of families in this regard. This is not an IT problem. This is a systemic problem stemming from decisions made about resources.

I refer to the shocking resignation of three consultant psychiatrists in the south east. Dr. Kieran Moore addressed the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care recently and told members that he and two of his colleagues were resigning. He said that patients were coming into a building that is in a dreadful state and that staff are burnt out. That says it all. Dr. Moore has just been awarded a pay increase but he has resigned, along with two of his colleagues, because of the state of our health service.

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