Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)

I thank the Members of the Labour Party for bringing forward such an important motion. I thank the Minister of State for his opening statement, which is comprehensive, but it is unfortunate to see the Government amendment and what is contained in it. We have spent a considerable amount of time speaking about this since the TV programmes aired and the experiences highlighted. Profit can never be the guiding principle for care. If we use that as a starting point when we discuss reform, we will all start to see we agree with each other much more than we differ in terms of ideology. Over the past 30 years, we have allowed the sector to move from being a public good to a profit-making endeavour for the majority. How this manifests itself is in the experiences highlighted by the "Prime Time Investigates" programme and many more.

I have spoken to staff in those settings. They have spoken about their hurt as the weeks and months have gone on. For many, it misrepresented the love, care and compassion they have for the work they do. They have also highlighted concerns in relation to the response and we have seen that now in terms of admissions being stopped. It is said there is an element of window dressing in settings now where we are seeing staff numbers being considerably increased in the last weeks and months as a response. Why it took such revelations is beyond me. Why businesses are allowed to operate relatively free of control is a starting point that we should consider.

Profit cannot be the guiding principle for care. The Minister of State will agree with me on that. I think we all agree with that. If that is the starting point, then we acknowledge that reform is needed through HIQA and the HSE. It starts with us considering a move back from the 80% private dependence to a much more publicly-funded and publicly-regulated sector.

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