Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I warmly welcome the Minister to the House for this important and timely debate. I compliment the Leader of the House and others who organised that the Minister would be present for a debate on this report first in the House. I compliment the Minister for making himself available for it. I compliment members of the task force on medical staffing on the considerable work they have done in the public interest and on the public service they have given. I also compliment the Minister on his responsible approach to health service reform. We do not agree on everything but one must give credit where it is due. The Minister has not sat back and said this is too big a problem and he can do nothing about it. He has taken full responsibility in this regard and has asked experts to study the area and to come up with recommendations, which is what they have done. It is up to the Minister and the Oireachtas to implement those recommendations and it is up to us to have an input in that process. This debate is an extremely important and valid part of that process. As Members of this House, representing various communities and interests around the country, we can give our views on the recommendations. I hope the Minister is broad minded enough to realise we are not taking a narrow, party political or parochial stance on this but rather we are making arguments on behalf of the people we represent and the values we represent in terms of the delivery of quality hospital care and a quality health service in our regions and nationally.

Nobody could contest the fact, stated repeatedly, that there is a major problem in the delivery of health services. This problem did not pop up overnight; it has developed over many years and we have not faced the challenges of the modern era. We have not been able to put in place a health service infrastructure which would deliver the quality of care we want delivered locally and nationally. Many hospitals in Dublin are so overcrowded that patients are being treated in car parks, a service over which nobody could stand. Tragedies have occurred in Limerick and Monaghan due to the failure of the health service generally to deliver the care that was required and people have been horrified and shocked by that.

In that context, this report, the Prospectus report and the Brennan report must be welcomed as adding to the body of information and analysis of the current situation we face. I thank the authors of those reports for the recommendations they came up with, although I do not agree with a number of them. One of the pilot areas in the Hanly report is the mid-western area which, from my point of view as an Oireachtas Member and a public representative in the mid-western area, is useful. The pilot area covers north Tipperary, specifically St. Joseph's Hospital, Nenagh. I ask the House to accept that I am not being parochial in this regard. The study examines this area. I live about 100 yards from this hospital and I am well acquainted with it, the issues around it, the people who work there and how the hospital and the health service in the area work. It is part of my responsibility as a public representative in the area. I am naturally very interested in the recommendations of the Hanly report as they have implications for the north Tipperary area in the context of hospital reform in the mid west, in particular the delivery of acute hospital services in that region. I ask the Minister to consider a number of issues.