Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I request that the Leader arrange a debate with the Minister for Health on the ongoing maternity services issue. I first raised this issue in February when I exposed the report. The CEO of the west north-west hospitals group has announced today that the hospital group intends to abandon that report into maternity services and the reference will be subsumed into the national process.

As Members may know, the chairman of that particular organisation had to resign in this regard. Many questions remain as to the preparation of this report, who endorsed it, what terms of reference were prescribed for this report and if the chairman acting unilaterally. I posed these questions to the Minister on a motion on the Adjournment in February and we have had a Private Members motion on this issue, but those questions have not been answered.

The women of Ireland are entitled to know that it appears the terms of reference of the report that has now been abandoned were underpinned by a policy to dismantle the existing 19 obstetrician-led maternity services throughout the country. Is it Government policy to reduce them? Did the terms of reference say that we have 19 obstetrician-led services but we now want to aim to have six obstetrician-led maternity services?

We are anxious to know precisely what is happening in this regard. We have discredited the report and the process that was informing it in the north west, so what is happening nationally? The people are entitled to answers.

Senator O'Donnell mentioned, and Senator Colm Burke often mentions, the crisis with the number of non-consultant hospital doctors, doctors and consultants in this country. That is a serious problem. Given the fact of our responsibilities under the working time directive and the fact the consultants' contract, while it appears to be a large amount of money to me, is not sufficient to keep our medical graduates in this country or attract a sufficient number from abroad, there are serious staffing challenges for the future. The people are entitled to know that the Government's top priority is to ensure we are breeding enough intellectual property at home, training enough obstetricians and other consultants and paying them enough to ensure they will stay here. There is a staffing crisis and I do not wish to have a situation, although it appears to be the case, where the Government is taking the easy option by trying to wind down and reduce the number of services throughout the country, rather than ensuring there are an adequate number of staff in place to run them.