Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Senator Fitzgerald asked about the clear legal advice that was made available to officials from the Department of Health and Children on foot of their discussions with their counterparts in the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. The proposed new Article 4A has been designed to allow public land to be leased, and no more, for the development of co-located hospitals. There will be an accident and emergency unit in the public hospital. The co-located hospital elsewhere on the campus will be required to take patients from that unit 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Detailed consideration has been given to co-location. It will complement, rather than undermine, the public system.

This has nothing to do with ideology. The only ideology is to get extra beds into the system to facilitate access for public patients. I cannot understand why people do not agree with such a policy. As Senators said earlier, access to hospital beds should be based on medical need. The clear advice we have received on the issue of the disposal of land, to which Senator Fitzgerald referred, is that land for co-located hospitals will be leased. I omitted to mention earlier, in response to Senator Prendergast, that the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance has been established to make recommendations on a licensing system for public and private health facilities. I am sure the Senator will welcome that development, just as I do.