Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

This is a great debate because it has broken down into an ideological political debate. One either believes in universal entitlements or one does not. Clearly, the Government is following the line of the Republican Party in America by saying that people cannot have entitlements if the money is not available. Members on this side of the House say we must set standards and a baseline for people. One can have universal entitlements in this country. The Government could have maintained the universal entitlement for everybody over the age of 70 in the same way as it could maintain the free travel pass, television licence and so forth. The universal entitlement does not have to become an issue because the economy is deteriorating.

I will explain why. The Minister and I had numerous debates about this issue in the Lower House when I was a Deputy. She often pointed out that the health service in the United Kingdom costs €2,000 per citizen in that country. She also pointed out that health care in this country costs €3,000 per citizen per year. Everybody in the United Kingdom, not just those over 70, is entitled to free general practitioner care. The UK can provide more care and provide it more cheaply. Why is that? It does it more efficiently.

This Government has failed to introduce transformation, reform and accountability to the system, as is clearly shown in the argument from the other side of the House. That is what went wrong. It is not because Deputy James Reilly made Deputy Micheál Martin look like Mickey Mouse but because nobody in the past seven years has done anything about the system. The Minister and I sat on opposite sides of the other House when I told her it was not possible to have two rates of payment for the same group of patients. Not only did this Minister do nothing about it, neither did anybody who is saying here today that Deputy James Reilly took the mickey out of the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin. Deputy Micheál Martin and the Government did nothing to reform the health service and did not deal with this issue in the past seven years. I as Fine Gael spokesperson on health and children raised this with the current Minister but nothing was done. That is what went wrong.

Universal entitlement can survive these economic difficulties. We are still spending a great deal of money but if we reformed the public and Civil service, it would be possible to make the changes we have discussed. Senator Quinn is respected in the House for making good economic arguments. However, he would never consider turning off the heating in his stores if profit margins were becoming tight. He knows it would be a foolish decision that would drive people away. He would make the decision to cut costs and make the business more efficient. That is what should have happened in the health service. If there is an economic debate about this, it amounts to the failure to make accountability and reform part of what the Government has done for the past six or seven years.

Penalising older people now, penalising children in the future, lining up child benefit for taxation and removing home help and other services from older people is nothing more than an admission of failure. The Government failed to protect the people it was elected to protect. The Minister need not give me any of the silly arguments she is trying to gather to claim that this is about money or anything else. It was a failure to do her job. We could not only continue to give the medical card to everybody over 70 but also give the medical card to every child under the age of five years if we had reformed how money is spent in the HSE.

As I said previously, the UK spends €2,000 per person every year on its health service while we spend €3,000 per person per year. We get less for our money. Why is that? The Minister and I had this debate on more than one occasion in the Lower House. Furthermore, I am disappointed that the cancer vaccine for young women will be stopped. There is talk about drug restrictions in the General Medical Services scheme whereby I will be told, as a general practitioner, no longer to give the good drugs to my patients who have a medical card but to give them the yellow pack service. That is now Government policy. That is the road the Government has taken; it must stand over it.