Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Hear, hear.

I could not agree more with the sentiments of my colleague Deputy Cullinane. He has spoken to those on the front line right across the State, to understand the consequences of the Government's decision to deliberately underfund health. Those consequences are real. It will be heard in the stories that will unfold over the course of the next number of months. These are real patients, real people, including children, who will languish on trolleys and who will go without the treatment in a timely manner because the Minister has decided on this approach. I have been finance spokesperson for 13 years and have responded to 14 budgets. Never in my life, two weeks after the budget being announced, has there been universal agreement that the Government has deliberately underfunded health. This is not underfunding to the tune of a couple of million or tens of millions, but €1.3 billion according to the CEO of the HSE. That is the reality of it. He is saying he will deliver a service plan to the Minister that will state that the HSE will have to go over budget next year by €1.3 billion. Why is this? It is because the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues decided to cook the books when it came to health. The Minister decided deliberately not to provide the additional resources that were required just to stand still and to leave the chaos we have in the health system at the same level next year as it is this year. He did not even do that. He has made the announcement over and over again. Where are the 1,500 beds? When are they going to come on stream because he has funded none of them?

He has talked about national programmes yet they cannot be funded. We talked about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, clinics that have been announced two years ago. How are they going to be funded? He has cut health to the bone as regards what is needed and the consequences are real. Does he think he can say there is now a recruitment embargo, that thousands of posts that were supposed to come on line, will not come on line, and that there will be no consequences? The consequences will be these people in my constituency in a hospital that is already in crisis, and a situation where the GP of nearly every person has written to the Minister, and 11 consultants refer to service collapse, while the Minister has decided to underfund that service. It is absolutely shameful at a time when the Government announces a budget of €14 billion that the Minister does this to the most vulnerable people. It is patients in their 80s and 90s, in my constituency and elsewhere, who will be languishing on a trolley or on a chair because the support is not there. The beds are not being funded. It is a disgrace and the Minister needs to change course.

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