Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, nurses and midwives who are members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, engaged in a 24-hour stoppage due to the complete failure of the Government and the Minister for Health to address the recruitment and retention crisis now gripping our health service. This afternoon will see hundreds of general practitioners, GPs, protesting outside the gates of Leinster House due to the lack of investment in primary care and the Government's failure to reverse past cuts to GP fees. The Psychiatric Nurses Association is today stepping up its industrial action through an overtime ban in advance of a three-day strike by those nurses next week. At the same time, we have the worst hospital waiting lists in Europe and last month, more than 10,000 patients spent time on trolleys in hospitals right across this State. To top it all off, we have the national children's hospital fiasco; a project that is now €450 million over budget.

This all adds up to a health system in a state of absolute and utter chaos. The situation in respect of the national children's hospital has descended into the realm of farce. This morning we learned from The Irish Times that senior officials from the HSE and the Department of Health who sat on the steering group for the hospital were flagging the soaring costs in respect of the children's hospital from October 2017 and almost every month after that. The Minister still maintains he was not informed or made aware of the costs overrun until August 2018. That time lapse does not sound credible but even if we do take the Minister, Deputy Harris, at face value, that does not explain why it took until November for the Minister to bring it to the attention of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe. Not once was the issue of an overrun mentioned and even in November, he did not personally tell the Minister of the €500 million overrun in that area. Can that be explained to us? The Minister, Deputy Harris, did not open his mouth about this project's cost overrun of €500 million for three months. It is utter madness, and shows the dysfunctionality in those Departments and at the heart of the Government.

The Taoiseach tweeted this morning: "We can get this project back on track." While we know that the Taoiseach is very much a man of spin rather than substance, what does that tweet mean? Is he suggesting that the figure he announced when he was Minister for Health, that of €637 million, would represent the project getting back on track? Alternatively, does he mean the figure of €982 million we were expected to believe would be the cost of this hospital or is it the €1.43 billion that is now suggested? Will that figure increase further? Is he suggesting that we are going to rein back costs on this project? The public does not have confidence in the Minister or the Government in this area and there must be accountability.

Any of the myriad of issues I raised at the beginning is bad enough in itself but combined, they are an illustration that there is something seriously and fundamentally wrong when it comes to health. The fact is there is incompetence and dysfunction at the top of the health service. It is crying out for direction and leadership and has been for many years. When will the penny drop with the Government that the Minister for Health is simply not up to the job?

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