David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I should have said MEP, or Deputy, which I think is the right term. My apologies for that. We are used to having a Minister sitting in the chair in which Ms Childers is sitting. I know she has been vocally opposed to many policies coming from Europe and even from this State in recent times, which is to be welcomed. The topic she is here to discuss is the challenges for transparency in decision making with regard to EU health policy and a role for the Seanad in scrutinising EU policy. I would certainly be a big supporter of the continuation of the Seanad and a clear role for it in scrutinising EU legislation and having linkages with our MEPs.

In respect of health, this State still has a problem with people waiting on hospital trolleys, long waiting lists, people not getting proper treatment and people with private health insurance getting treated more quickly and in a better fashion. This is a form of institutionalised queue jumping. That is the reality of our public health service and its incremental privatisation. We are here to discuss transparency. No Senator could honestly say that we have a transparent health system when one looks at the HSE and what it has become over a long period of time. I know the Government says it is committed to dealing with it but I do not see any evidence that what we will get will be a truly transparent system. We are all waiting for the Higgins report, which Ms Childers might be aware of, which will look at a reconfiguration of hospitals, the formation of groupings and then trusts.

There will be clusters of hospitals with academic linkages such that big hospitals will link with small ones through third and fourth level academic institutions.

There is still no democratic accountability. The old health boards were abolished and the HSE was set up. Time and again in this House I have heard the current and previous Ministers for Health and Children washing their hands of responsibility for what is happening in the health service. I do not know if anybody in this House has used any of their colleagues in the Lower House to put down parliamentary questions to the Minister for Health and Children. If so, seven out of ten replies refer the questioners to the HSE which will refer them to somebody else. One goes around the houses before getting a response. Transparency is the last thing we have in our public health services, unfortunately. This State is not in a position to lecture anybody in Europe about health policy, accountability and transparency when it is so lacking in those things itself.

I had a lot more to say because I did not realise I had only two minutes in which to speak. I will wrap up by thanking the MEP for coming to the House. Health is an area in which the EU can be a driver for real change. Like Ms Childers I believe in a social Europe. The EU has lost its way. It has been overtaken by neo-liberals who are implementing policies which work against the development of a social Europe. I would like to see it move in a different direction. It should focus on health, education and investment in public services. It should make sure that people have rights and that those rights are vindicated by member states and that we do not have the institutionalised inequalities in public services which we now have across Europe. The EU could do a lot more in the area of health care to achieve the social Europe that Ms Childers and I want to see. I would appreciate her thoughts on that and on the Irish health care system.