Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I thank Senator O'Meara for sharing her time with me. I deeply appreciate it. I also welcome the Minister of State to the House. I had fully intended to speak strongly and vehemently in support of the Fine Gael motion. However, having listened to the Tánaiste's views, my position has changed quite substantially, albeit perhaps not completely. My opposition had been on the basis that something was to be given away to the private sector. I shared the view of the Fine Gael Members — as they understood it to be — that this was completely unacceptable.

Where does this leave me? While I have had many differences of opinion with the Tánaiste over the years, she has never been less than truthful in her dealings with me. I take people as I find them and I accept the point she clearly made to the House to the effect that not a square inch of public land will be given away and that any land to be used for private purposes will be sold or leased at the going rate. I appreciate that and it changes matters significantly.

That said, I still do not like this development. Having listened carefully to the arguments put forward by the Tánaiste, her position is logical. Nevertheless, I do not see why it must be on land which is available at present in hospitals. I take the point made by a number of speakers that the private sector should look after its own business. However, I do not object to private investment in the health services, if that is what people want. I object to taxpayers' money subsidising it in any way.

I have been infuriated by the idea that up to the present, certain public beds owned by the State in public hospitals were under the control of private consultants. If I was obliged to make a choice between that practice and the Tánaiste's proposals, I would prefer the latter. The idea that there is an empty bed in a hospital which the hospital authorities cannot assign to anyone because it is under the control of a consultant is one of the reasons why I believe the consultants' contracts should be changed completely.

This measure should be fitted together with the renegotiation of the consultants' contracts. The Minister of State may recall this point, as he was in the House on the last occasion when this issue was discussed. Enough money should be paid to new consultants to attract the best people possible into the public health service. My suggestion, which is on the record, is that an opening offer well in excess of €300,000 should be made. Senator O'Meara's point is correct. If only one of these measures is adopted, Members will be supporting the introduction of a two-tier system.

However, I have seen such a system work in other countries where the consultants in public hospitals were being paid at a rate that attracted the very best people who wanted to stay in well-paid secure employment where they could give a good service. The amount of money offered is insufficient to allow this to happen. We should move all those on existing consultant contracts to the private sector, where they can grow old, doing that business. Let us attract new energetic enthusiastic and ambitious consultants into the public health service and give us back the beds we own.

I like much of what the Tánaiste has proposed, provided that everything mentioned in her speech actually happens. If public lands are given away to private interests I strongly support the point made by Opposition parties. It is our duty to ensure this does not happen. I have seen the reverse happen in education, where the State built public schools in private land owned by the churches. I also objected to that as we invested money into facilities that we did not own afterwards, which no right-thinking person would do. It has nothing to do with the church; we should not do it in any circumstances. If we are to have a variation of this in health I would be equally opposed.

However, the suggestion that this is a cost effective manner of releasing or producing an additional 1,000 beds in the public sector is an attractive proposition. It will only work if it is matched by consultants of quality. If this is not so, what Senator O'Meara suggested will undoubtedly happen. We will simply have a two-tier system in which the consultants will leave the public sector. We will have given them the best start-up with brand new hospitals, etc., and we will ultimately lose out.