Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A Cheann Comhairle, thanks for calling me to speak. Like other Deputies I welcome the Bill. This is one of those pieces of legislation each year that is up there with the Social Welfare Bill and the Finance Bill. It is very important. It needs to go through the Houses. It is about ensuring that older people in society will end up with insurance cover, that there is risk equalisation, that it all works out and all things are equal. I want to join with the sentiments expressed by others. I hope this will not be too convoluted a Bill and that it will pass through without any great debate or inconvenience in terms of amendments and whatnot.

Access to healthcare is what I would like to speak to in the few minutes I have. The Minister has often heard me speak about healthcare in the mid-west in this Chamber and in the health committee. As this Dáil enters its eleventh hour, it is a fact that the Minister has done a significant amount to address the inadequacies of healthcare in the mid-west region. There was yet another programme last night about UHL. The previous week there was the very upsetting "Prime Time" special about Aoife Johnston losing her life in UHL two years ago. There is a litany of evidence that points to under-investment and a hollowing out of the health system. To be fair, in his tenure, the Minister has tried to address it with 1,200 additional staff, a huge amount of funding, these new beds coming on-stream and equal investments happening in the satellite hospitals of Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's. That is all to be commended. The Minister has given the reasons many times as to why it is a bit more complex, but I would really love to put my view on record in this Dáil in respect of the HIQA review on a model 3 hospital or new accident and emergency department in the region. If more impetus can be given for that review to report back earlier than scheduled, it would be greatly appreciated in the mid-west region. In terms of healthcare we have been second-class citizens for too long. Things are starting to come right yet there is an elephant in the room, or rather an elephant missing from the room, namely a model 3 hospital in my home country of Clare. I hope that can be advanced somewhat. As we all pack up our bags in the coming weeks to go campaigning, I hope one of the Minister's parting shots in the Department will be to tell the officials and particularly HIQA to move on with that study and analysis and to report back more quickly than planned.

There was a very positive announcement last week by the Minister for further and higher education, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan. We are seeing new pathways into medicine, particularly at undergraduate level, with a focus on rural GP care being led out of NUI Galway. This is fantastic but I think we have to go one step further. Maybe that is a controversial view.

It is probably too late to happen in this Dáil but certainly when the next Government and Dáil are formed, I hope some negotiation will be held with the INMO, the nursing union, and the IMO, the doctors' union, in order that the best and brightest graduates we are churning out from our universities will remain on Irish soil for some period after graduating. I think it should be the carrot rather than the stick approach. They are young people and they have housing and cost-of-living needs. Maybe there could be some incentive to ensure our doctors and nurses will not end up in Melbourne, Dubai or Abu Dhabi for two or three years but will instead be in our hospital networks and provide rural GP care. I would love to see the Minister lead on some of that.

This may be one of our final debates on healthcare before the Dáil rises, whenever that does happen. I thank the Minister for what he has done in his Department and I hope there are a lot more positives to come. As I said, it would be major if that HIQA report could be moved on.

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