Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

Some weeks ago I raised the case of a young woman with curvature of the spine who needed immediate attention. The Leader took up this case as well and the National Treatment Purchase Fund changed some of its rules to accommodate this young woman and to ensure she received the necessary treatment. One must welcome that and I hope the outcome in that case will be good.

Today I want to raise another question on the public health service, namely a situation that has arisen in Beaumont Hospital. Some of the Senators will have read the lead letter in today's edition of The Irish Times where a local general practitioner writes that he is horrified that the staff at Beaumont Hospital must hold a fund-raising golf classic and write to local general practitioners asking for a contribution of €100 to buy a basic piece of ultrasound equipment costing €24,000. It is extraordinary when we hear about the money being pumped into the health service — we have had the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, in this House on a number of occasions speaking about it — that it does not seem to be reaching the right places. Why must the staff of Beaumont Hospital and the local general practitioners fund-raise to get a basic piece of equipment which they need for the accident and emergency department? Given the millions of euro being poured into the health service, it seems extraordinary. I ask the Leader to bring this to the attention of the Minister, to ask for action on it and to see where is the barrier that has meant that Beaumont Hospital does not have the funding for this basic piece of necessary emergency equipment.

It seems that the bureaucracy is taking over. We have spoken at length about much of the money that has been invested in the health service being focused in the wrong place. It is disgraceful that patients coming into the accident and emergency department in Beaumont Hospital do not have access to this equipment and that the medics do not have access to it to use it for people who really need it. It is a sad indictment of the present state of the health service that such a situation has arisen.

I want to mention the U-turn by the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, on the privatisation of bus services. We thought he had done all his U-turns for the year, but now there is another one. Many people in Dublin will attest to the fact that there are not enough buses, people are left waiting all the time and the service leaves much to be desired. One of the ways of dealing with this is to privatise certain routes and give the option to private operators to provide this service. That now seems to have been taken away by the Minister.

Perhaps the Leader could get the Minister to address this issue in the House. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, threatened to resign the last time this was on the agenda when it was stated that the Government was changing from this agreement. Perhaps the Leader would clarify if she intends to resign on this occasion because of this changed decision. As I stated, it is yet another U-turn and it is the commuters of Dublin who will suffer if we do not have better bus services.