Dáil debates

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Róisín ShortallRóisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

In a couple of weeks' time, the Minister will come into this Chamber to announce his budget proposals. It is highly likely the Department of Health will again be awarded record levels of funding, potentially in the region of €22 billion. Given the crisis caused by Covid and the more than 900,000 people now on hospital waiting lists, this level of funding is undoubtedly required. The Social Democrats will support that funding commitment if and when it comes. However, the Social Democrats differ from the Government in one important matter when it comes to the health service, namely, we do not believe in repeatedly pumping large amounts of public money into a dysfunctional health system. Money alone will not solve the endemic problems in our broken health service. In tandem with the spending commitments, we need to see urgent reform in order that everyone who needs access to healthcare receives timely care and has the best possible outcome.

The blueprint for that reform - Sláintecare - was agreed on a cross-party basis in 2017. The Government has the plans, yet it refuses to implement them. It seems the Government is not interested in reform. All it does it pay lip service to it. The Minister does not have to take my word for that. He can listen to the two senior Sláintecare managers, Laura Magahy and Tom Keane, and the former chair of the South/South West Hospital Group, Professor Geraldine McCarthy, all of whom have now resigned. They will tell him that serious institutional resistance to essential Sláintecare reform is threatening the entire project. We know where that resistance is emanating from, namely, the HSE and the Department of Health. Critically, there is also a lack of political leadership, a lack of commitment and a lack of courage at the top from the Minster for Health and the rest of the Cabinet. We will never see reform of the health service unless the political will is there to drive it in order to take on the vested interests, wherever they come from, and to ensure that the people of this country have access to healthcare based on need and not ability to pay. More than a decade ago, Professor Keane had staunch support from the then Minister for Health, Mary Harney, when he reformed our cancer services. It was a hugely controversial reform at the time. He would not have been able to do it otherwise. If the same level of political support existed today for the Sláintecare reform, would Professor Keane have resigned? The answer to that question is obvious.

I have three questions for the Minister. How does he expect the people to have confidence in the Government's management of Sláintecare when so many key people do not? Why is the Government refusing to acknowledge the serious problems that exist with the Sláintecare implementation? Is the Minister going to reappoint the members of the Sláintecare implementation advisory council, which has only eight days left in its term of office? As of yet, they have received no engagement from the Department of Health on their future.

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