Taoiseach defends health system reform plan

Every cent of income tax received by the Exchequer this year will go into the health service, the Taoiseach has told the Dáil as he faced persistent Opposition criticism about the radical reforms announced yesterday.

Mr Ahern insisted the biggest changes in more than 30 years would result in improved patient care, a better health service and a better and more accountable management system. The Government was resourcing the health service, and "now we need to manage it better". A lot of money was going into the improvements, he stressed. "Our entire income tax bill will be used to fund the health service."

However, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said the Government "is confusing administrative change with real reform", while the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the package announced yesterday would not include the most important document of all, the Hanley report "on medical personnel, on the consultants, doctors and nurses who work at the coal face".

The Government would conceal that report until the Dáil had risen for the summer, he claimed.

The Taoiseach said the Hanley committee had only finalised its work at steering group level 10 days ago and had to "sign off with the various bodies". Mr Rabbitte retorted that "journalists have had it for the past six weeks".

A clearly irritated Mr Ahern said deputy Rabbitte complained that he did not answer his questions, but as soon as he tried to answer, "he incites his party to shout me down. Will you just listen?" he said, adding that the memorandum to Government was being drafted and had not yet been signed off.

He assured the House that those compiling the three documents - the Prospectus, Hanley and Brennan reports - "have all worked together ... They are a coherent and overall plan which will, I hope, give reform."

Mr Kenny said that at the end of the "glossy production and hype, what will people have delivered to them? Not a single extra bed, not a single nurse, not one single extra medical card".

The health announcements yesterday were about "the protection of the politics of sham of a Government which has lost control and lost touch with reality. How does closing 500 beds or leaving Mullingar Hospital empty for the past years represent efficiency and reform?" Mr Kenny demanded.

To persistent Opposition heckling and jeering, Mr Ahern replied that Mr Kenny was entirely negative about the service and "I will just ignore what he said and move on. I am interested in seeing that we have a better service for our people with more consultants, more nurses and more beds, lower waiting lists, better hospitals and more money for equipment".

Mr Rabbitte said the only thing the reforms would do was to save about €1 million in expenses from those who attended health board meetings, and they included more than politicians, he said.

The Taoiseach "will sack a few councillors and that is supposed to be a solution to the health crisis in this country".

The Labour leader added that "the only reports we have are an accountant's report, produced by the Department of Finance, which is important in itself presumably, and the report on structures. We do not have the key report on medical personnel, the consultants, doctors and nurses who work at the coalface." The Taoiseach, "doe-eyed", told the Dáil that the Government "is providing 3,000 extra beds". But these would cost €7.7 billion over 10 years by the Taoiseach's own calculation and "the Government has provided €7 million so far".

He demanded to know what the Hanley report would do "for the patient. What will it do when the major acute hospital in the Taoiseach's constituency is making provision to treat emergency patients in the car-park and sick children are less provided for in Crumlin than they were 50 years ago?"

The Taoiseach said the Eastern Regional Health Authority had confirmed there was "no question of anyone being dealt with in a car-park of any hospital".