Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

It has nothing to do with the Minister for Health and Children but rather with the staff at St. Luke's who manage their resources excellently. There is a paediatric unit which children can attend with their parents. There is a day ward. However, there is no toilet in the ward and people must go down a corridor to access a toilet. I hope the Minister will take that on board and do something about it. There is also a minor injuries assessment area and a small dedicated accident and emergency unit.

The hospital also works very well with local general practitioners in an effort to eliminate the practice of people coming into accident and emergency units except as a last resort. It is thanks to the dedicated staff at St. Luke's that we have an ideal example of what the Minister should encourage the Dublin hospitals to do. The Hanly report seems to be having a go at hospitals outside Dublin. If Mr. Hanly were being truthful, he would focus his attention on the Dublin hospitals because that is where the difficulties are, not in Nenagh, Ennis, St. Luke's and other hospitals outside the Dublin area.

Recently, the Minister spoke about getting €1 billion extra in funding. The reality is — and I challenge the Minister to clarify this — that three quarters if not more of that funding will go on staff wages and administrative costs. Of the €1 billion we will be lucky to see approximately €200 million in extra resources for the health service.

The health strategy published a few years ago referred to diagnostic health centres. There were to be three in the country. Carlow was in line to get one, given that it is the only county in the country without a general hospital. There were plans afoot for a private hospital in Carlow which was to have the diagnostic health centre attached to it. That idea seems to have evaporated.

It is worth noting that my colleague from Monaghan, Deputy Crawford, tabled a question recently to the Minister for Health and Children which showed that the outgoing Minister for Health and Children had spent €30 million on nearly 150 reports, very few of which were implemented. I challenge the Minister, and Senator Glynn as Seanad spokesman on health, to organise a debate in the House in which we could have a progress report on each of those reports. I am sure we could do it in two minutes because they were published, put on a shelf and are now gathering dust.

The abolition of the health boards seems to be the greatest farce of all time. The number of health boards has gone from 11 to four. The CEOs are still in place. The CEO of the South Eastern Health Board will be staying on for a further six months. Why are we reducing the number of health boards from 11 to four if the same administrative structures remain in place? What is the purpose of doing so? I have asked for the Minister to come to the House and explain whether there will be staff redeployment or staff losses within the health board. Staff working in the health boards are rightly concerned about their livelihoods. The public are also concerned that the plan to reform and slim down the health boards appears to be a myth and that there will be a more bureaucratic service, which they do not want.

It is very worrying to hear the masters of the maternity hospitals say they are thinking of putting a cap on the number of patients during the summer months in the interest of patient safety. They announced that there are only nine delivery wards in the hospital and that one day there were 19 women in labour at the same time. In Limerick the staff levels are too low. There is one consultant for every 750 births when the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology recommends a patient-consultant ratio of 500:1. This has been going on since 1998, a year after the PD-Fianna Fáil Government took office. The Government has ignored the situation at its peril and it will come back to haunt it in the coming months.