Somebody of the calibre of Ryanair boss Mr Michael O'Leary should be appointed to head up the new body being established to manage the health service, an economist at Trinity College Dublin has suggested.
Dr Seán Barrett, who was a member of the Brennan Commission which reported earlier this year on the lack of financial management and controls in the health service, said the chief of the new Health Service Executive, being set up as part of the Government's health service reform programme, should be an independent outsider, and he expressed disappointment the appointment had not yet been made.
In doing so he echoed the recent comments by the chair of the commission, Prof Niamh Brennan, that there should be greater urgency in getting the executive up and running.
It was being delayed, he said, to discuss changes with health service staff, but he felt their interests were subordinate to the interests of patients who wanted to get into hospitals and couldn't until change took place.
Addressing delegates at the annual conference of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association in Limerick, Dr Barrett said it was incredible that while staffing in the health service had increased by 47 per cent to 100,000 people since 1997 and spending by 125 per cent to €9 billion, inpatient discharges grew by only 4 per cent.
Despite the growth in jobs in the sector, there had been, he said, a failure to tackle the shortages of doctors, pharmacists, dentists and physiotherapists. He attacked the way in which entry to the health professions was being restricted and said Irish universities were partly to blame.
He criticised them for allocating so many places in their medical schools to non-EU students who were paying huge fees while Irish students with 570 points were being denied places. This meant highly qualified people that would have made a great contribution to the health service were being turned away. "It's a good job we didn't have similar rules that prevented Michael O'Leary entering the airline business," he said.
Referring to other past "disasters" in the health service, he cited the underestimation of the cost of extending medical cards to those over 70 years. It was estimated in 2001 to cost €19 million but went on to cost €55 million. And because it was announced before a deal was done with the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, members of those groups ended up having to be paid more than four times as much to treat newly eligible non means tested medical card holders over the age of 70 than persons with means tested medical cards.
Dr Barrett also hit out at the cost of benchmarking and said he believed the awards it made, which will cost the public services some €1.2 billion a year, should not be paid and the benchmarking body should be abolished.
Mr Vincent Barton of Prospectus Management Consultants, which following an audit of health structures recently recommended the abolition of health boards, also called at the conference for speed in the implementation of the health service reform programme but said he accepted a period of consultation had to take place first with staff.
The Minister for Health Mr Martin told delegates he was now considering possible nominees for the Health Service Executive.