James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Mac Lochlainn that we need to review the health service but, equally, money is not the only cure. During Fianna Fáil's 14 years in government, it quadrupled spending on health but the situation was as bad as it ever was. I am not trying to score political points but that is the reality.

There will always be a demand for hospital services. They are important because the most acutely ill people arrive at hospital emergency departments. We must also take a longer-term view and invest in primary care. With the competition that goes on between primary care and secondary care, hospital care always wins out. The situation will not improve until we grasp the nettle and invest money in prevention. As I have said before, it is much easier for politicians to hail a new ward and new CT scanner than it is to hail and support a public health initiative or primary care facility which will do much more good and save many more lives in the long run. Many people end up in hospitals because they have been unable to access case in a timely fashion, their diagnosis has been delayed and not enough emphasis has been placed on prevention. I did not stand up to speak about this matter today but I support what was said. We need to put more funding into primary care. I was a GP and I have returned to general practice but I can see the situation is getting increasingly worse. I will not go into the individual cases that have come to me in the past few weeks, which are quite worrying.

I want to raise another matter along the lines as prevention, namely, sports grants. There has been much discussion about restricted funding and the fact we might not have sports grants. Sport is hugely important, a fact we all acknowledge. It is very important for the development of young people, for the cohesion of communities and for teaching young people, in particular, that teamwork is important and how strength comes from co-operation rather than individualism. There is an old Irish saying, ní neart go cur le chéile, which means we are stronger when we work together. I cannot finish talking about sport without mentioning the fantastic victory of the Dubs and the great display by Mayo. Congratulations to both teams because it was an outstanding match. I call on the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, to ensure sports grants continue. We were able to allocate them in the worst of times. In the depths of austerity we put money into communities and sports facilities for young people to give them a safe place to expend all of their energy. This is a wonderful, natural attribute of youth. We must not renege on our policy in this regard at a time when circumstances have improved. Undoubtedly, they have not improved as much as we would like or for everyone we would like to see have a better existence, but sport is a great unifier and needs to be supported. The Minister needs to ensure funding is made available for this purpose.