Results 19,841-19,860 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: It may have issues around its membership, about which it is concerned, but we are talking about the overall market. As the Deputy has told me on many occasions previously, he is not interested in which insurance company people belong to and neither am I. Competition in the market has been a very good thing. During the last recession in the 1980s very few people dropped out of private...

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I accept that. I cannot look into my heart and tell the Deputy when the first sod will be turned, but I can tell him, as I said in reply to Deputy O'Sullivan's earlier question, the Beacon Medical Group has spoken about this recently and mentioned that it envisages the first facility will be in place in 2012. I understand two or three projects have paid over the non-refundable deposit. I...

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I will try to obey the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. First, there was never any doubt about how many beds were involved. If I did not have the information to hand, it was available. I can give it to Deputy Ó Caoláin rather than waste time. In Beaumont, it is 157 inpatients, 54 day beds, and so on. I can give him the information.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I am sorry. I may not have had them before project agreements were signed when we had gone to tender but there was never any doubt about each project agreement.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: Deputy Ó Caoláin knows none of them have happened yet. If it was the great bonanza for profit makers that he seems to think, they all would have happened overnight.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: For the information of the Deputy, UMPC has taken over 40% of Beacon. It is a not for profit organisation with a considerable international reputation. I presume most here will be aware of its reputation in the United States and beyond. Therefore, not all of these projects are being developed by what Deputy Ó Caoláin would call "the profit motive". On capacity generally, we have a...

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: On the infrastructure that this will provide, keeping all of the consultant manpower on the one site and allowing the public and private facilities to work hand-in-hand as they do in other facilities in the country that are collocated-----

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: The reality is that under contracts of employment negotiated long before I or Deputy Ó Caoláin ever came into this House, consultants have certain rights in relation to private patients. The idea here is to free up these facilities for the public patients.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I do not mean to be smart-ass with Deputy McCormack, and I am not trying to be, but he, among others, lobbied me from Galway to have that cancer research facility included as part of collocation. Galway city has many private facilities. It has the new Galway Clinic in place in recent years. Besides the logistical issues of the university hospital site he mentioned, capacity from the private...

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I want to make clear that I am not certain all of the hospitals will avail of tax breaks.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: There are transition arrangements which the Minister for Finance announced. My understanding is, if memory serves me right and subject to correction, that anyone who has applied for planning permission by the end of this calendar year will be facilitated. My understanding is that at least one of the projects where a project agreement has been signed will not be availing of tax breaks.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: Applied for.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I will answer it. On what has happened in Drogheda, Drogheda is following best international practice. When there is an outbreak of something like C. diff, one closes off a hospital to visitors if that is what is required to make the hospital safe. That is normal practice. It does not only happen in Ireland. If the Deputies read any international press, which I am sure they do from time...

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: -----they will see it is common practice in many other countries.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: Notwithstanding the bed pressure, activity this year is ahead of last year.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: Every reform we try to introduce is opposed by Deputy Reilly.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: When we tried to reduce the cost of delivering drugs to patients, he even opposed that.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: He did. I saw his "chaos, disaster, the wrong policy".

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: Deputy Reilly cannot look for more for everyone who works in the service.

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: He cannot look for more, as he is good at doing. Every vested interested is represented in this House by Deputy Reilly. If he is to be the spokesman for the main Opposition party-----