James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

His party did a lot of shroud waving last February when people were told that we could not maintain a safe service with the numbers of staff leaving. The men and women who work in our health services have in fact improved it by reducing by 25% the number of people who have to endure long trolley waits, although I acknowledge that we still have a long way to go. They reduced the inpatient waiting times by 91% for people who wait nine months or longer for a procedure and 18% for those who wait three months. There are 800 fewer children on our waiting lists now than at the same time last year. I commend them on the extraordinary work they do against a background of less money and fewer staff. We have also seen a higher birthrate this year than previously. The birthrate was approximately 60,000 five years ago but it is more than 75,000 now. The current numbers of medical cards, at 1.8 million, and GP visit cards are the highest in the history of the State.

I do not accept the Senator's contention that we cannot fully regulate a market of competing insurers. It has been done elsewhere and we will do it here. If he keeps focusing on the amount of money invested and the number of doctors, nurses and allied care professionals working the system instead of how they are ensuring that the right patient is seen by the right professional at the right time and in the right place, we will continue to do what we always did, that is, pour money and resources into the system without getting the results we want. Only last January 569 people were on trolleys in this country, after several years in which we quadrupled the amount of funding for the health service and increased the numbers of doctors, nurses and allied care professionals. If that approach was going to cure the problem it would have done so a long time ago. What we require is a system that allows the many excellent professionals who work in our service to deliver the excellence they want to deliver. This will give us a health service in which people feel safe and which gives pride to those who work in it not just some of the time but all the time.