Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Conway Walsh is very obliging. Bhí rud suimiúil i rith na géarchéime a bhí i CAMHS i gCiarraí agus i rith na géarchéime eile san ospidéal i dTrá Lí maidir leis na leithscéalta a bhí ag an Rialtas mar gheall ar na deacrachtaí a bhí aige le hearcaíocht. One of the curious things about the recent crisis in the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Kerry and the ongoing difficulties in University Hospital Kerry has been the excuses about the difficulties faced in terms of recruitment. Bed needs staff and consultant vacancies are widespread say the Government. Why would people not come down if there was a salary of €200,000 on offer?

However, the new waiting list plan essentially amounts to repackaging much of the current difficulties, expenditure and measures. What are we to expect, if the investment and conditions do not improve? The CAMHS scandal, no more than the difficulties that other consultants face, is as a result of the inadequate resources and team and some consultants not even having an office. How does the Government expect to attract new consultants down to places such as Kerry when the necessary resources are not in place?

Worse than that, however, is how the Government claims to be trying to address the issues in the public system, tying one hand behind its back. There may be obstacles to the implementation of Sláintecare, but investment in the public system is the only way to overcome it, such as through directly-employed staff. What about the salary GPs mentioned in Sláintecare? There should be 200 of them throughout the country. I have not seen any of them so far.

Local government representatives, however, continue to advocate and back the private system over the public system. That does not help, either, and will only set up the health system to fail. The Minister asked about the ideas coming from here. Elective surgeries were postponed in Kerry for a period of six months. Most, but not all, of them have only recently come back. Hip and knee replacements are still outsourced to private hospitals. The Minister was looking for other ideas. The orthopaedic ward has not been done. The colposcopy unit still has not been made. The plans the five Kerry Deputies saw in a meeting last November 12 months are still on a desk in Dublin awaiting approval.

I saw what the Minister has said about all the new full-time staff being added to the workforce but the difficulty is that experienced nurses are leaving. I ask all the Deputies, especially Kerry Deputies, to back this plan, keep the job guarantees to health graduates, reduce the inequality in pay and remove private practice from public hospitals.

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