Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will not even need five minutes. I just have a few words from earlier on. I want to thank Minister Harris very much for the spirit in which he is agreeing to take this very positive proposal on board and for putting a six-month time limit on investigating its feasibility, because I think it is a very positive suggestion. We have seen that it works in Portugal. The evidence is there. We do not have to re-invent the wheel. It does not cost a huge amount of money. The cost issue was raised earlier. I think it will cost something like €10 million initially. If we compare that with what was spent on the PPARS computer system, which I believe was something in the region of €50 million and which was a complete waste of money, it is a drop in the ocean. It would save us an awful lot of money.

I refer to what was said about the number of missed appointments. There are many reasons people miss appointments, but among my own constituents in Mayo the most common reason I find, particularly in respect of the Galway hospital, is that people do not have transport. Elderly people and others do not have transport and cannot afford to take the six-hour round trip to Galway by taxi for their appointments. They will not do so unless they really feel ill. If they can feel they can get away without having the appointment or putting it off to a further date, they will do that because they just do not have the money. At one time one could go to the community welfare officer and get some help with transport costs. I believe this is the single most prohibitive factor in people keeping hospital appointments at the moment.

This integrated list would help very much in scheduling. Somebody, for example, from Mayo, can have appointments three days in a row, in three different clinics in the Galway hospital or whichever hospital it is. If there was a properly integrated IT system, that person could have the three appointments on the one day rather than being seeing for ten minutes one day, taking the six hour round trip back and coming back again for a half an hour two days later. In that way, the list could be reduced and a lot of money could be saved. It would also take people out of pain who are currently suffering because they cannot get the treatment they need.

Deputy Harris referred to scoliosis, which I will address briefly because I know many scoliosis patients. I would ask him to look at the medical certificate that allows for transport, particularly for rural areas. If children or others have scoliosis and all that involves, they should automatically be entitled to a medical certificate that would give them and their parents some help with private transport, instead of being refused one time and time again.

That is all I will say. I appeal to Fianna Fáil at this stage to withdraw its amendment and to let this motion go through, for us all to work together in the interest of new politics and in the interests of the more than 600,000 people who are on the waiting list and for us to see if this would work and to give it a genuine chance of working. I appeal to Fianna Fáil.

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach, I thank the Minister of State for coming in and I particularly thank the Minister, Deputy Harris, for his genuine attempt to work with parties across the board to address this problem which has existed for decades.