Fine Gael and Labour have contradictory health plans, says Martin

Fine Gael and Labour are contesting the election with contradictory healthcare policies that cannot be delivered if they get back into government together, Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin has said.

Mr Martin said voters should examine closely what political parties are promising to do if they get into office as some pledges cannot be delivered upon and amount effectively to "rubbish promises".

Based on the most recent opinion poll the new government will have to be a coalition of either parties or one large party and Independents, meaning that any party, including Fianna Fáil, will be obliged to create a joint programme for government.

Speaking in Youghal, in East Cork, where he was canvassing with first-time candidate, Barbara Ahern, Mr Martin said parties should not make promises that they have no idea how to deliver, as has happened when it came to health care.

"They promised us universal free GP care as part of their health policy five years ago and now Leo Varadkar is saying it's not even possible in the next five years because you need about 2,000 GPs according to an independent report, to implement it.

“And yet their partners in government, Joan Burton and the Labour Party are saying that they know that we can do this if five years, that we can have free GP care so that’s clearly a rubbish promise -it’s just a nonsense and people are fed up of that type of promise which cannot delivered.”

Mr Martin said Fine Gael had effective made a promise on health care five years ago that it “hadn’t a clue how to implement” and once they got into government, they delayed implementing it and then began to research how to implement it before cancelling it at “the 11th hour before the election”

However, it was possible to make improvements to the health system but it would require greater investment in the public health system which Fianna Fáil believed was achievable in contrast to Fine Gael approach which favoured less investment.

"You can make substantial improvements to our health service - we have a longer life span now in Ireland and the key is extra resources in terms of capacity for hospitals to take the pressure on emergency departments," said Mr Martin.

"We also need to reinstate the treatment purchase fund which we put in place in 2002 but which James Reilly took away, we need to ring fence a special fund where the money goes to treating patients and getting the operations done.

“That way we can get waiting times for operations down to six months for adults and three months for children, which we had achieved in previous times and then we need to re-orient the service towards primary care.”

“We believe in a publically funded health system. We don’t believe in privatising our health system as Fine Gael wanted to do five years ago. There will always be challenges in health but we can improve the service incrementally and take the pressure of staff and give greater relief to patients.”