John Minihan (Progressive Democrats)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann, welcoming the allocation of €9 billion in health funding by the Government this year and mindful of the objective of delivering quality services and value for money with these resources, calls upon the Minister for Health and Children and the Government to take early and decisive action to reform the management structures and financial accountability of the health services.

This year the Government will allocate just over €9 billion of public expenditure to the health service, nearly three times the level of resources allocated just before the Progressive Democrats-Fianna Fáil coalition Government took office in 1997. Nearly one quarter of all current spending is devoted to the health service and the rate of increase has been extraordinary. During the years of exceptional growth no other area of current spending received such additional resources or was given such priority. Nearly 100,000 are now employed in the health service. While more can always be done in the health sector and the people rightly expect the Government to stretch itself and do more, the full picture of what is happening in the health service cannot exclude the tremendous increases in resources devoted to the sector in recent years.

Controversy and political points are always made about the marginal increases in funding, relative to previous years, in particular areas. While this is to be expected, no rational policy discussion can ignore the volume of current spending, what it is we are trying to achieve and what new spending and services we would like to introduce. No rational policy for any area of public spending requires continued increases of 100% every four years or so. This is especially the case in areas like health or education which take up large parts of the current budget. Behind the political rhetoric, public representatives who have a serious interest in health policy accept this. If we are spending one quarter of current Exchequer spending on the health service, we owe it to the public, whose money it is, to make sure we are spending it effectively. We are obliged to ensure we are managing and accounting for its resources well. As public representatives, our job is to require health management and administration to be focused on outcomes and results for the users of health services.