Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is needed to help build, to help care, to help teach and to help deliver a public service.

Today, in our health service and hospitals there are 576 people on trolleys. Our trolley count is a crude, but powerful, indicator of the health of our health service, and 576 people on trolleys on the first day of October is a near record for the first day of this month. We need new staff but we also need to keep existing staff. They are overworked and underpaid. This is the reality of our healthcare workers and nothing in this budget is dealing with that fundamental problem. I acknowledge this budget document states there will be investment in a number of healthcare strategies, which is welcome. The cancer strategy, for example, has gone underfunded for a number of years. It requires €20 million but in this document, it is included with the stroke strategy - again, vitally needed - the maternity strategy, the women's health action plan, the dementia strategy, the breastfeeding strategy and the palliative care strategy. All these strategies need to be developed and funded. There is no detail on the funding for these strategies. These are not documents that stay on a shelf and do nothing. Strategies in these areas help deliver healthcare and help save and prolong lives.

The absence of a strategy, such as the absence of a cancer strategy, means people suffering with cancer are not getting access to clinical trials. We are at 50% of the level of clinical trials in Denmark, for example. We are so far behind in that regard and that is because we are not funding those strategies. Will the Government please provide the detail, the funding and the strategies? We are failing behind.

My colleague, Deputy Nash, spoke about the investment in electronic health records. Again, this is something that will really deliver healthcare outcomes. It will stop the need for repeated X-rays and repeated therapies, the duplication or tripling of work, and will actually ensure timely diagnostics and delivery of healthcare. This should not be long-fingered.

Regarding the hot school meals programme, this is one of the best things the Government has done. It is brilliant. I am glad it is being extended. What I like about it is, not only does it do what it says on the tin and makes sure every child that gets it is getting a hot school meal, but it is egalitarian. These pupils, these kids, are sharing the same experience. There is no difference. A son or daughter of privilege is having the same meal or at least getting something from the same menu as the son and daughter of a parent in direct provision. That is a good thing. We are a bit concerned with the holiday hunger pilot project next summer. It is not about the actual scheme itself. It should be rolled out but calling it the holiday hunger scheme lacks a bit of compassion. It takes away from what is good about the hot school meals scheme. Call it the summer meals scheme or call it something else. These children know better than anyone else that they are hungry. They will not need a scheme named that or see it printed on a box. Will the Minister of State take that point away? That kind of compassion is something that is needed.

On transport, this budget is so devoid of vision and ambition. We have thousands of people who are waiting at bus stops and on platforms for buses that are not turning up and trains that do not have enough carriages. The problem is not just a timetable change; it is capacity, tracks, carriages, buses, workers and drivers. We do not have them and this budget is not going to deliver them in the slightest. This budget will deliver a shrinking of our tax base and an increase in spending and is doing it with windfall taxes. It is bringing our economy to a place that is precarious. Best of luck to the Government on these economics outlooks that will be put in the budget documents over the next five or six year. Hopefully, they will be delivered.

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