Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to welcome Pope Francis and that he is given a céad míle fáilte to our country.

Senator Mullen raised a specific issue about a lady and our health service.I will not get into a tribal response, but the Government is making changes. Rather than focusing on the political end, we should look at the management end. The Senator spoke about a triage nurse. I had the recent experience of having a family member in an emergency department. They had to wait for a triage nurse and had to wait for a doctor to discharge them. Having worked in the health system, as Senator Gavan did, I do not know why the nurse cannot discharge the patient. A nurse may have more competency than the junior doctor who has to do it. There is a management structure and a process that needs to be changed in our health system. We focus on the health system. We are spending over €12 billion on health. There is something radically wrong when the case the Senator outlined has taken place in our health system. I would love to hear solutions to that. We are spending more than €12 billion on our health system and yet doctors, nurses, catering assistants, porters, radiographers and others complain. What is wrong? The system is broken. That is why a cross-party committee produced the Sláintecare report. I agree it is time for solutions rather than coming in and blaming politicians. I do not think we should always just blame politicians. There is a management that is not working. Let us have an honest debate about our health system.

Senator McDowell spoke about the MetroLink proposal. The public consultation process will continue until 11 May. I read the remarks of Mr. Aidan Foley of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, who is open to hearing from anybody on the process. We are spending €3 billion, planning for the future.