SF 'astonished' over health delay

A CABINET subcommittee established in June to deal urgently with the health service has not yet met, the Dáil has heard. The sub-committee will meet for the first time on October 5th, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

But he added that over the summer he had “called together the Department of Health and the HSE for a barnstorming session about several health issues”.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said he was “astonished” the subcommittee had not yet been set up, when it was announced with “great brouhaha”.

Mr Kenny insisted it was “not announced with a great brouhaha. After a review of the Cabinet subcommittees, I considered there should be one for health and we set it up.”

Joe Higgins (Soc, Dublin West) said: “It beggars belief that it has not yet met when hospitals across the country are suffering traumatically from the swingeing and savage cuts imposed by the HSE on the Taoiseach’s watch.” He said the subcommittee was established “to underline the urgency of the needs of the health service and deal with the dramatic and disastrous effects of health cutbacks”.

The Taoiseach said the committee would meet on October 5th and “its purpose is to provide political oversight of the Government’s programme to change the structure and nature of the health service to ensure it is fit for purpose in 2011 and onwards”.

Asked which Ministers were on the committee, Mr Kenny said the Minister for Health and the two Ministers of State for Health.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said “a Cabinet committee means it is composed of Cabinet members” and it could not be one “if it just comprises one Minister and two Ministers of State”. He said there was a lack of commitment to the Government’s proposal to reform health insurance because the committee had not met and the Taoiseach did not appear to know who was on the committee.

Mr Kenny replied: “I have rarely listened to such blather in my life.”