Seanad debates

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

10:30 am

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

However, now Fianna Fáil says it is underfunded. It certainly did not think so last year. It shows how much things can change dynamically. I accept that Deputy Micheál Martin did some very good work with the smoking ban as Minister for Health, but it is difficult to take some of the shrill criticisms he makes sometimes given that he should know how difficult health is. Of course, he is the former Minister who promised to abolish waiting lists within two years but failed miserably. He is also the former Minister who established the HSE in a disastrous, ham-fisted manner, establishing a new bureaucracy on top of bureaucracies that still exist even now. Even now, there are still nine payroll systems in the HSE. That was the worst reform in the books when it comes to health. When he was Minister, they did not count the trolleys at all. However, newspaper reports at the time show that children waited six years for appointments and in some cases patients were treated in ambulances and car parks one winter. He needs to bear that in mind a little bit better.

While Sinn Féin makes promises to hire additional nurses and health care staff in its policy documents here, in Northern Ireland, where it is actually in coalition, it has signed up to reducing the number of public servants by 20,000, which would be the equivalent of 60,000 in this jurisdiction. It has also signed up to a spending freeze in health and denied health staff in the North their promised pay rises. In addition, it is closing minor injury units across the province. A little bit of realism would be helpful there too.

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