Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, to the House and congratulate him on his appointment. I wish him well.

Primary care is essential. It is important to emphasise that it will ultimately save money in the health service. There is a need for greater emphasis on programmes which encourage people to avoid incurring medical conditions which are not good for them or the Exchequer.

Members on this side are condemning the cuts in this area, in respect of which the Minister of State is opposing us. When previously a Member of the Seanad on this side of the House, the Minister of State did as we are doing and we opposed him. This is part of the cynicism surrounding politics, as mentioned by Senator Mary White.

When it comes to the budget and overruns in the health service, it is inexplicable that the serious overruns identified in the early part of the year are to be addressed between now and the end of this year. When the district hospital in New Ross closed, a number of people came together, took it over and operated it as a community hospital. Each month the board of directors were given information on hospital costs for the previous month, how this compared with the previous year and projections and forecasts to the end of the year. Everyone knew exactly what was going on and if corrections needed to be made, they were made immediately. We did not wait until the end of the year to do so. It is obvious there is not in place in our health service the required management personnel to carry out these functions, which is serious. This issue needs to be addressed.

The appalling attitude of the witnesses who appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts yesterday typifies the reason our health services and finances in that area are as bad as they are. There are too many administrators in the health services. I was critical of the proposal to establish the Health Service Executive as I believed it was a flawed model and doomed to failure because there were no intermediate checks at regional or county level. Oireachtas Members and councillors could play some role in relation to the delivery of services in their areas and monitoring of funding in this regard.

Another issue which needs to be addressed and for which I have been calling for a long time is that of costs across the public service, in respect of which I accept we on this side of the House must accept some blame. The level of salary being paid to hospital consultants in this country is scandalous. Some 500 consultants are on salaries in excess of ¤200,000 and the salaries of many others are just below that threshold. I recently spoke to a hospital consultant, who is surgeon in Italy. His salary is ¤5,000 per month which amounts to ¤60,000 per annum. Consultants here are being paid three times that amount. This issue needs to be tackled, otherwise patients will suffer. This is not fair or justifiable. This issue needs to be tackled if we are to have fairness and equality in our system.