Cowen defends policy on hospitals

DÁIL REPORT:THE TAOISEACH was criticised by the Labour leader for not having the facts on the Government's hospital co-location proposals.

Eamon Gilmore asked Brian Cowen for the list of the proposed hospitals and the cost involved.

When Mr Cowen said he did not have specific answers to the questions, Mr Gilmore said he had been minister for finance for the past five years.

"They are more appropriate to a parliamentary question," said Mr Cowen. "However, I can deal with the policy issues."

He said the purpose was to introduce into the public service delivery system another method that would be more expeditious. It was not an effort to bring in a two-tier health system.

"The whole purpose is to, first, bring beds on stream more expeditiously than would otherwise be the case, an second, by means of the various service agreements that would be entered into, these arrangements and facilities would be available to all patients, not simply to private patients."

Mr Gilmore said he wondered what Seán Lemass would have thought of Mr Cowen's answer.

"He was a champion of public service, and I cannot see him providing medicine for profit in the way the present Government is doing.

"I did not ask the Taoiseach for the rationale behind the strategy. I understand the rationale, but I do not agree with the thinking behind it. I did not ask the Taoiseach to repeat that here today. I want some facts."

Mr Cowen said that if he was on notice of questions he could give the facts.

Repeating that Mr Cowen had served as minister for finance, Mr Gilmore said the matter had, presumably, crossed his desk.

He added that Mr Cowen had replied to Dáil questions last year when he told the House that the total cost in terms of tax reliefs would be somewhere between €400 million and €500 million.

Mr Cowen said that was the cost delivered indirectly.

Mr Gilmore pressed the Taoiseach to say where the hospitals would be provided.

"That is not a hard question. Presumably, the Taoiseach has been looking at this issue for the past couple of years."

Mr Gilmore claimed that the planned private hospitals would end up being paid for by the taxpayer, through tax reliefs, and paid for by ordinary families, whose health insurance would be increased to pay for it.

Mr Cowen accused the Labour leader of "continual ideological blindness", adding that what was happening was an attempt to improve the system for all patients, including public patients.