Results 4,781-4,800 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

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-----

Hospitals Building Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: -----and he aspires to be Minister for Health and Children, I expect a bit better from him. On many of the reforms, whether it is HIQA, the fair deal, the hygiene standards, the cancer control programme or changing how we remunerate pharmacists, everything has been opposed by Deputy Reilly. That is a fact.

Nursing Home Charges. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: My brief contains the HIA statistics. If there is any need to correct the record, I will certainly do that.

Vaccination Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 78 and 81 together. The incidence of influenza-like illnesses, ILI, reported on 25 October last is at a rate of 210.9 per 100,000 population. This is the highest ILI rate reported since sentinel influenza surveillance began in 2000. There were 2,727 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 on that date. It is not necessary for swabs to be taken by GPs to make a...

Vaccination Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: It is a pandemic and every country faces the same logistical challenges. Our experience is very much in keeping with our counterparts in Europe and we have had close contacts with many colleagues, particularly those in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. There is no issue with regard to indemnity and this has been made clear to general practitioners, both individually and on the...

Vaccination Programme. (4 Nov 2009)

Mary Harney: We have 615,000 vaccines at present and from their arrival at the port until we can get them to the HSE clinic or to general practice takes about two weeks. From next week it is hoped to start with infants between six months and four years, preschool children and health care workers. After that the focus will be on the over 65s and school children, with the rest of the population coming...