Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Paul Daly referred to the difficulties being experienced by tillage farmers across the country. I support the call for the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to intervene in the ongoing crisis faced this year by farmers.

I support Senator Paudie Coffey's call for the Minister for Health to come to the House to talk about hospital groupings and funding for the hospital network across the country. Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn also touched on this issue which requires drastic attention. The model used to fund the health care sector needs to be reviewed, as it does not provide value for money for the taxpayer. There are serious questions to be asked. I agree with the former Minister for Health and Children, Senator James Reilly, that money will not resolve all of the issues within the sector. Their resolution is very complex. Until such time as all health expenditure follows the patient, we will never achieve value for money in the sector and will always face crisis after crisis. Every politician will be referring to crises in various areas and hospitals on different days every month until an holistic approach is taken to resolving the health crisis. This partly involves the sports capital grant, as referred to by Senator James Reilly. Until we target problems such as obesity, we will not be working holistically and will have only a knee-jerk reaction to the health crisis. There is a bigger picture to be considered. Politics should be kept out of it in so far as possible. I acknowledge that there is a ten-year strategy committee, but the Seanad should address the issue, bearing in mind that we can avail of the expertise of a former Minister, Senator James Reilly. We should examine it on a cross-party basis. Let us come up with some suggestions, if possible. Let us park politics outside the room and come up with constructive arguments, some of which might be on the economic side and others on the health or community side. Let us come up with some strategy that the Seanad could provide for the Department of Health. If we were to do so, we would be doing the State some service.