Results 11,381-11,400 of 18,734 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Prisons Bill 2006: Committee Stage (28 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: I will examine all these amendments before Report Stage to ensure the legitimate issues raised are accommodated.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: It is obvious the Deputy got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: Investment in our health services has risen to more than €12.75 billion in 2006. Ireland's public spending on health has grown at one of the highest rates in the OECD in recent years. Irish spending on health has gone from 15% below the OECD average in 1997, when the Deputies opposite were in power, to 17% above the OECD average in 2003. This is notwithstanding the fact that Ireland has...

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: The number of approved consultant posts has increased by 720 or 56% in the period since the Deputy was in office and today. It should be noted that this Government has provided the health service with record resources.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: This Government also introduced the National Treatment Purchase Fund which has been an outstanding success. People may criticise one area of the health service or another but the record shows that Ireland as a society has gone from a situation which in 1997, when Fine Gael, Labour and the Democratic Left were in office, spent 15% below the OECD average on health, to the point where we now...

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: —— to improving our health system. We have introduced the medical card for people over the age of 70 years and we have also introduced——

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: ——GP visit cards and 200,000 extra GP visit cards are now available.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: All the recent accident and emergency figures show conclusively that there are improvements right across the service on a daily basis. The health service is rapidly becoming one of the most effective health services in the European Union.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: I understand a complaint was recently made to the Ceann Comhairle that I gave out about people asking questions and then trying to shout me down. It happens constantly in this House. Deputy Stagg and others are practitioners of the business of asking a question and then shouting the respondent down.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: I regret such tactics.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: It demeans the Irish Parliament. I think the Opposition is making a collective disgrace of itself and if it does not want to hear the answers I will not go any further.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy seems to be engaging in amateur theatricals. He has come into this House——

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: The shouting has started again. That is the end of it.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: As the Deputy appreciates, an extensive review of tertiary paediatric services was carried out by McKinsey and Company on behalf of the Health Service Executive. It recommended the establishment of a single — not a dual — tertiary paediatric hospital in Dublin. It also recommended that the hospital be co-located with a leading adult academic hospital. Subsequently, a joint task group...

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: Either we agree there should be a single tertiary paediatric hospital in the Dublin area or we do not. There are two schools of thought. Some people have suggested there should be more than one such institution. However, the decision of Government and the HSE, based on the McKinsey report, was that there should be only one such institution. No matter where it is located, there will be...

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: There is no magic solution to that problem.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: I am making a very simple point. Once we decided, based on expert advice, that there should be a single campus, which was based on the McKinsey report, it followed——

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: It was.

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: It recommended a single tertiary paediatric hospital in Dublin co-located with a leading adult academic hospital. I believe the Deputy will agree that once one accepts that recommendation, the hospital must be located somewhere and it will not be convenient for everyone. I am quite satisfied the selection process was objective and without interference. The imputation that McKinsey and...

Leaders' Questions (29 Nov 2006)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy is forgetting the answer I gave, which was that a joint HSE-Department of Health and Children task group was established and the officials on that group decided to make a recommendation. It is wrong to impugn them and to suggest they were "got at" in some way without any evidence whatsoever of that.