Seanad debates

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Longer Healthy Living Bill 2015: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am accepting that does happen. The Minister can be flippant about this issue if he wishes but a consultant who works in the hospital was on local radio yesterday and said that this happened not for the reasons given by the Minister, but because of capacity issues in the accident and emergency department. That is what happened and that is the Minister's fault. That is the responsibility of Government. He also said that it will continue to happen, over and over again, unless we address those capacity issues.

There are capacity issues in our public hospitals and the Minister knows that. He also knows that there are critical pressure points in some hospitals and in some specialties within those hospitals. There are problems with recruitment of consultants and junior doctors because of the number of front-line staff that were taken out of the health service in recent years. There is much work to be done to get things right in the public service and particularly in our public health service. This Bill represents one small step the Government could take, at least to allow those who want to continue to work to do so - people who are of a certain age but who are capable of continuing. In the spirit in which the Bill was brought forward, I acknowledge the Minister's support for it, in principle at least, and the fact that he is allowing it to progress to Committee Stage. I look forward to the Committee Stage debate on the Bill at some point. During that debate we can tease out any concerns the Minister or Senators may have. The Minister might also address some of the other issues I have raised in his response today.

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