Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will start my contribution with some breaking news. The media has a responsibility if they put out a story by way of breaking news but the Government has a responsibility to give the proper information. I see the Ceann Comhairle was at the front of a breaking news story last week that 400 former Deputies were told, by way of a headline, not to attend the bar and, in small print underneath the headline, the restaurant in the Dáil. The facts are that the bar has, along with the wet pubs, been closed since the start of the pandemic. That is the breaking news but it was a headline last week. If we want the real news to get out it should be done properly. I am not a drinker but I am telling the truth.

Before we left the Dáil last night, one Deputy came out and said that there was a problem with the sanitiser used in schools. It was breaking news. I did some research this morning and found that there was an issue with one batch of a sanitiser from this company and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine asked for the product to be recalled. That is a fact, but the direction from the Department forgot to state that this company has 500 products. The name of a company was tarnished, whether it was right or wrong, but the information had to come out, yet it has 500 products. If a company like Johnson & Johnson had an issue with a shampoo, does it recall its hand creams and everything else across the board? The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine should have come out with proper information about the company and told people exactly what was wrong. We all know that bad news sells newspapers but at this time of a pandemic people need reassurance. They need facts.

During the week, I spoke to the Limerick Leader. I said that bringing out the Army was the only way we can help this country but the front headline was that a local Deputy had asked for the Army to be deployed. I did ask for it to be deployed but if people read the article they will see the reason I called for that. The medical staff in the Army could help the medical services. The Army could come out and assist gardaí on the roads. That would release some gardaí from that duty and allow them go back into areas where antisocial behaviour has gone through the roof. I asked for that to help and protect the people of Ireland and because there is a massive difference between city and county. We have no infrastructure in the county. That is where the Government is failing in bringing out laws. That was mentioned by other Deputies. One might have to travel 10 km or 15 km to a shop to get groceries but all the facilities including taxis and so on are available within the cities. I can get nothing like that in the county. If the Government is bringing out laws it should think of the people in the county who have no infrastructure. Previous speakers mentioned rural Ireland. I have mentioned it many times. As I said, since this Government was formed and since the start of the pandemic people now realise what is rural Ireland; it is when one lives outside a major city anywhere in the country. When the Government is making laws it needs to ensure that they are for everyone. If it needs to bring out a law for eight cities, bring it out and if it needs to bring out one for the counties, bring that out and make sure it is implemented.

I wish the Minister well in his role but €3.8 billion will not fix the HSE, which was broken long before the outbreak of the pandemic. My first speech in this Dáil was to say that it should run the hospitals like a hotel system and have a management system in place. Let the healthcare workers, who are doing a fantastic job, do their job. We should have a set-up where beds are released at a certain time and if the patient is not well enough, they hold that bed. The consultants come around before 11 a.m. to meet the patients. We need to make sure that we have a regulated system in place so that when a nurse or a doctor looks at it they can see that there are two beds free in, say, ward 2B or five free in ward 1A.

The problem with our hospital system is the management of some of the hospitals and there has been a failure to address that for years. We need a structure where the beds coming in and out are run like a hotel system. If a hotel said a guest could check out at 7 p.m., it would not have a room the following morning. The same system needs to be put in place in hospitals. If people are not well enough to leave, they should stay where they are but they should see a consultant in the morning at a certain time. When there was a public private partnership in place, consultants were getting more than their allocation of beds. Some people were getting treatments and the public were on waiting lists. That was because management was not strong enough to tackle the consultants and make things work. The €3.8 billion will not fix this health system. The problem is management, structure and accountability.

I approached the previous Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, about a case of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and he told me he would ask the HSE to liaise directly with the family in question and respond to their case. That was on 21 May. It never responded. He said he would ask the multidisciplinary team to look at the case but the family has never been contacted. I brought this matter up again in two parliamentary questions and on 14 October I brought it up with the Ministers of State, Deputies Rabbitte and Butler. The system is broken. Throwing money at it will not fix it. Accountability to the management is what will fix our HSE.

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