Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Without wishing to speak for Senator Colm Burke, I believe he was suggesting that persons who wished to put questions to the Minister for Health might have posed them during the three-hour meeting of the joint committee which took place last week.

I am trying to provide answers to the questions posed earlier. Among the facts provided by the Minister for Health to the Lower House is that which indicates that the HSE is being obliged to cope with a demographic challenge relating to the increase in population. The latter is, of course, additional to the challenged posed by our economic situation. As the Minister, Deputy Reilly has pointed out, in this year alone there has been a 3% increase in admissions to accident and emergency departments. I am of the view that everyone will accept that circumstances of this nature are extremely difficult to budget for. The Minister is presiding over an unprecedented reform programme. Perhaps Senator MacSharry might want to listen when I inform him that last week I referred to changes to hospital governance in anticipation of the roll-out of universal health insurance and the end of the inequitable two-tier health system. The Government is committed to this and the Minister and his Department have been working on it. Many colleagues are not aware of that fact. On previous occasions I asked the Leader to allow the House to debate the progress that has been made towards the roll-out of universal health insurance.