James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It appears to me that the calls for the Minister of Health to come to the Seanad are premature, because the Minister has not yet received the report of the trauma steering group. The report has been selectively leaked, possibly to cause the greatest amount of disturbance and unrest. Let us wait until it has been published and we have all had time to read and understand it, so that we can have an informed debate on it. There is nothing simple about the health service, as people know. There is a relationship between every part of it. It is not possible to sort out the problems of accident and emergency departments without sorting out the issues of delayed discharges in hospitals and greater access to community facilities, not only to rehabilitation services and nursing homes but also, as pointed out by Senator O'Reilly, to home help, home care, community teams and intravenous nursing teams, to allow people have their treatment at home.That also includes early intervention and prevention. I do not intend making a Second Stage speech but politicians have been far too quick to look to the nice, shiny new hospital wing and MRI scanner rather than focusing on serious community-based public health initiatives that save many lives, prevent much illness, as well as providing for early intervention and chronic illness care, as we do with diabetes and can do in many other areas. We also need to look at the whole way doctors, nurses and other health professionals work. Currently, we have consultants doing work that GPs could do, GPs doing work that nurses could do, and nurses doing work that nurse assistants could do. There is a significant role for physiotherapists and many other allied health care professionals to play. We must work towards a situation where we treat the patient at the lowest level of complexity which is safe, timely, efficient and as near to home as possible.

I decry the behaviour of those burning our flag and, particularly, posters of elected representatives and those who seek candidature. It is very wrong. We should not focus on the negative, however. We should commend those involved in the peace process in the North and be grateful that the PSNI had so few incidents of a serious nature to deal with last night.