Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the Minister. It is great to have a debate on the capital plan. The capital budget is €11 billion over the next ten years. It is fascinating that people are knocking that at this stage as it is a positive outcome.

Having done a project myself, I have issues with the overruns for the national children's hospital, which should be more closely monitored. I will make a few other points about the hospital. The building's design has led to problems. Whenever a curve is added to a building, it increases the cost by 10%. People inside the building do not worry about whether it is curvy or straight. The building should have been straight, but some architect will probably win an award for it. Kildare County Council also has a fantastic looking building, for which the architects won awards, but the people of Kildare will be paying for it for the next 20 years. We should be smart when we appoint architects.

Fianna Fáil has forgotten very quickly that when the port tunnel was completed in 2005 it was 48% over budget. Now we see it as an amazing piece of infrastructure. Sometimes when we look back at such projects, the criticism seems unwarranted once they are being used. In ten years time we will say the national children's hospital is a marvellous piece of infrastructure which was badly needed. It will be a world-class facility.

I hate negative terms. People say we have a third-world health service here, which is absolutely ridiculous. Has anyone here ever visited or worked in a hospital or facility in an African country? Some 20 years ago I brought a young child to a facility in which I was working, where the cicatrin powder which had been donated was four years out of date. Do not talk to me about such things. People are comparing how much we spend here and the problems we have, but we only have to look to the North of Ireland or across the water to the UK, where the problems in the NHS are not too dissimilar to the problems we have here. We are putting ourselves on a pedestal to be knocked down. We should look elsewhere before we start criticising.

The Minister previously mentioned Naas hospital and sent me a follow-up on it. It is a huge part of the capital plan. I met with the nurses there and confidence is required within the staff. Even seeing diggers on the site would give them a boost. The hospital has planning permission but I am worried it will run out. It is hugely important that the hospital has an endoscopic unit, but a number of day wards are also being built onto it. I hope we can start on that as soon as possible as it has been on the agenda for a good while. Recently, I attended the opening of an Affidea ExpressCare clinic in a primary care centre. As Senator Coffey said, these primary care centres are a positive development. The ExpressCare clinic would love to be linked with Naas General Hospital. These clinics cater for many of the people who would normally attend accident and emergency units but do not need emergency treatment. In the old days, a general practitioner would stitch cuts and wounds but nowadays GPs will not do that work and send people to hospital, thus taking up space in accident and emergency wards. Clinics would like a service level agreement under which people assessed in triage in an emergency unit and deemed not to be a serious case would be directed to them. This would avoid people having to wait between six and eight hours in accident and emergency.

I very much welcome the extra 1 million home help hours, which will free up hospital beds.

The Little Way cancer support service in Clane is very close to my heart. As the Minister will know from his visit to the centre, it provides therapy to people who have been diagnosed with cancer. The service has sought funding. Like Senator Murnane O'Connor from County Carlow, I beg the Minister to provide some of the funding promised for the service. It would be great if he could do that.