Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I join other Members in wishing the Leader well and in congratulating him on his good news today.

I wish to raise the issue of financial waste and outsourcing in the HSE and I ask that the Minister for Health be invited to the House to discuss it. This matter was revealed last week on foot of a parliamentary question submitted by my colleague, Deputy Louise O'Reilly. Since 2012, the State has spent €25.6 million on private ambulances and €800,000 of that was spent in Limerick. This colossal spend on hiring private ambulance services is financially imprudent and does not constitute anything like a long-term strategy for an essential public service. I will put this in context. For the €800,000 spent on outsourcing private ambulances between 2012 and 2015 in Limerick, University Hospital Limerick could have bought, staffed and owned four fully equipped emergency ambulances. Instead of this short-term planning, we must have the HSE invest in new ambulance services and build our own publicly-owned stock. Otherwise, our stock will continue to deplete and we will become utterly reliant on private providers who will demand higher fees while at the same time paying significantly less to their staff. The evidence of this is in the eightfold increase in State spending on private ambulance providers between 2012 and 2015, and there is no sign of a change in direction.

One often hears about the political centre and how the centre must hold. There is nothing of the political centre about a rightward rush to privatise our ambulance service.That is what has taken place over the last years. The Government's own figures show this. Does the Leader support his Government's policy of the ongoing privatisation of our ambulance services? To me it is an absolute disgrace and it is a betrayal of the public sector workers who work so hard in that sector.