Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have outlined them on many occasions in the House. Last year's budget was a typical example where mortgage interest relief was increased for those who bought their houses during the boom. That Government commitment was honoured. We will be debating the Insolvency Bill for a number of days as well. There are many other measures but I certainly agree that there are more things that we can and should do.

Senator Higgins referred to a recent report on loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the survey, 39% of SMEs requested credit while 61% did not. As regards the reasons for not requesting credit, 79% said they did not need it or did not have sufficient funds to request it.

On the decisions on credit, 60% of applications were approved or partly approved, 19% were declined and 21% are pending. When the pending applications are excluded, the approval rate is 76%, although there is still room for improvement in lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, irrespective of the contents of the report.

Senator Crown raised the issue of cystic fibrosis and the problems in St. Vincent's hospital. There are currently 29 CF inpatients and of the five concerned who were refused access when they presented at St. Vincent's on Monday, four have been admitted and one has declined a bed but that patient's treatment is being managed by the hospital. St. Vincent's is dealing with some infection control issues in the hospital that have made bed management more complex. The hospital is, as always, trying to ensure no CF patients are exposed to the risk of such infection during their treatment.

A protocol for the treatment of CF patients at St. Vincent's hospital was signed off with the HSE, the hospital and the Cystic Fibrosis Association in July 2012 which provided for up to 34 beds to be available for CF patients at the hospital and that a ten bed day unit would be used effectively to help ensure patients were treated in the optimum setting. The agreement was for up to 34 beds to be available in the new wing of the hospital for CF patients but this did not involve the structured use of ten day beds as well as the 20 single occupancy inpatient beds in the new wing of the hospital. Infection control issues can make bed management difficult and require that everyone in the hospital operates to all agreed protocols to ensure the facilities involved are used to the optimum level at all times. There is also a need for agreed clinical protocols to address how cystic fibrosis patients-----