I congratulate the Minister on the seat he now occupies and wish him well in his new position. When we were winding up this debate last I said I wanted to say a few words about the health services. Much has already been said regarding lack of health services in Ireland over the last few months and during this debate, but it would be remiss of me not to comment as I represent the area most disadvantaged for health services.
Many patients are now being treated in hospital on a day visit basis where a bed would have been provided for them five or ten years ago. Patients visit hospitals now to see a specialist or to have a problem investigated and when they have to undergo slight operations they are not provided with a bed as they would have been a few years ago. A few such cases have come to my notice recently and I do not think there is any need to mention the hospital's name as I am sure this is happening in most Dublin hospitals.
Two patients I know of had a gastroscopy without anaesthetic because a bed could not be provided for them. I have had this operation myself on two occasions, but with an anaesthetic. It was unheard of before now in medical circles to carry out this operation without an anaesthetic. Patients after this operation now remain in the hospital waiting room for a few hours and are then collected by relatives or friends. One person had to get a taxi home to Tallaght. This state of affairs is despicable. One of these patients told me she would never return to a hospital or a specialist again but would have the local medical doctor treat her rather than go through another ordeal in a Dublin hospital.
Word of this situation is spreading. Doctors are now reluctant to send patients for this gastric examination because of what they must go through in hospital. Heretofore it was not necessary to stay overnight but to have a bed for the day which is not available now in Dublin hospitals. Consequently unnecessary suffering is caused to people who are already suffering from a physical illness. The two patients I referred to were being investigated for a hiatus hernia but this minor operation is carried out for other complaints too. This is a relatively minor operation but it is a major ordeal for an old person to undergo this examination for between three and six hours without bed accommodation; a day bed was always provided for this examination in the past.
Health is a major issue in my constituency; the greatest disappointment is the delay and what many would now say is scrapping plans to build a Tallaght hospital. Many people who have settled in the area over the last few years believed a hospital would be built; Tallaght has been planned and built only since I became a public representative. In the late sixties Tallaght was a village of 3,500 people, including the surrounding areas. It is now an area of 80,000 people — I am referring now to areas where there are hospitals — an area equivalent in size from Crumlin to Naas or from Blanchardstown to Rathgar or Stillorgan, which does not have one hospital bed. Is there any other area in Europe of similar population where one could say that? There is not one hospital bed for a catchment area of 350,000 people, 80,000 of whom live in the immediate area of Tallaght.
Local GPs now hesitate to send their patients for investigations to specialists in the city. There is not even a specialist service in the Tallaght area I am referring to, which probably has the highest unemployment rate in the country. Two local authorities competed with each other to build the maximum number of houses there 15 and 20 years ago without providing the necessary infrastructure. In one housing estate 70 per cent of the heads of households are unemployed. That area needs medical facilities more than areas where almost every family has a car. In housing estates in my area less than 50 per cent of householders would be car owners and may have to travel from eight to 12 miles for specialist services, having to get two and sometimes three buses and bringing with them two or three children.
The Government cannot stand by and watch this situation continue for much longer. The people of the Tallaght area have been very patient and have organised themselves in many ways to compensate for lack of facilities and to demand better services. We have an excellent Tallaght hospital committee supported by the local population. Nobody is opposed to the hospital; everybody wants to see it built. I am sure my views are shared by my colleagues on the opposite benches; Senator Conroy is familiar with the situation. The Tallaght hospital planning board was set up in 1980, 12 years ago. The planning brief was completed in 1984. The board are hard working and determined to ensure they could not be held responsible for holding up the building of that hospital. Their chairman in the beginning was a local person, Mr. Molloy, who was very interested in the building of the new town, and worked with all speed on that committee. I served on it for a short while as did Senator Conroy and he will know that the board made every effort and representation possible and worked long hours. The board and the people of Tallaght now feel frustrated.
I am no longer a member of the board but many have come through that board; it would not be advisable to have the same board for 12 years, I did my stint for three or four years as did others, including public representatives.
Successive Governments are under suspicion for the way they treated this project. In the early stages it was envisaged, indeed the board were given a brief to provide a hospital of 450 beds with second phase developments of 50 and 150 beds with the usual facilities. At a later stage they were given a brief to provide for a hospital of 600 beds. Naturally this upset the plans that were going ahead for the 450 bed hospital. Now I hear a further brief has been given to the board to reduce the hospital to 350 or 300 beds, all to be built in one phase, in other words, reducing the hospital size from what was envisaged originally.
Apart from the local authority development in the area, many people have invested their life savings buying houses in Tallaght, some of them through my persuasion because I believed the town would develop and that the teething problems of the early stages could be eliminated and we would achieve proper organised development. The town centre, the third level college and the hospital were the three items I pointed out to people in the past when they were either deciding to move in to the area or to remain there. I persuaded quite a number of people to buy houses in Tallaght, which was the town I grew up in and the town that grew up with me.
I and many other people are now suspicious as to whether the Government are serious about going ahead with the hospital. Everything is ready. The site has been provided by the local authority, from the £3 million provided by the former Taoiseach, when he was Minister for Finance in 1969. The site was procured in the early seventies. Everything, locally, has gone according to plan. We were told by successive Governments that the hospital would be provided in 1992, this year. It was then put back to 1993, and the timescale we are now being given is 1998.
Are the Government serious about building the Tallaght hospital? I would like the new Minister to give a straightforward answer. Since he was appointed he has got more radio and television time than any other member of the Cabinet. I do not mind any Minister doing that, if he has time for it. The Minister could do more in his Department than going on radio and doing a PR job, talking about the doctor-patient relationship — something that is quite adequate already. There are far more serious jobs to be done in the Department of Health than going on radio and television. I will give the Minister another few months to see what kind of results he comes up with.
This question of the hospital is a major problem for the people of Tallaght. I am sure there are several people, particularly women, seeing their GP today who are now being referred to a specialist in one area or other. The GPs in the area are reluctant to refer them because they know those people will have to bring members of their family with them, perhaps even having to take two buses to get to see the specialist.
In the absence of building the hospital, I appeal to the Government to provide specialist services. This was investigated when I was a member of the board ten years ago. We even went out and visited sites where these specialist services could be provided. All we need are two or three rooms for two or three days a week. It would mean more to the people of Jobstown, Killinarden, Fettercairn and all these vast local authority housing areas than many things that have been talked about.
Last year, when the sale of Irish Life was proposed I asked that the money got from the sale be used to finance the building of the hospital. I do not know what that money was spent on; does any Senator know how that money was used? One does not have to provide all the funds for the hospital in the one year, they can be provided in successive years but wherever the funds come from I would like the Minister to make an announcement that instead of 1998 the date is being brought back — and let us be realistic — to 1995-96. That would give some hope and ease the terrible problem that exists in that area.
There is another matter which affects the same town in the same way. Many of the services the Government should be providing are actually being provided by voluntary and charitable organisations. They are now being affected by the massive drain of cash to the national lottery. I did not vote for the national lottery when the legislation was going through this House. I foresaw the consequences it would have in the areas I am talking about.
It is not easy to get information from the National Lottery Board. I have failed to get them to say where the cash comes from, but I am sure they have the figures. I say to them, and I challenge contradiction, that the greatest amount of money going into the national lottery comes from the areas I am talking about — the local authority areas of west Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Swords and the new developments in County Dublin. It is not that people can afford it. They are grasping at the hope of improving their lot and that is why they spend so much money chasing the big prizes we see on television and hear on radio. The net result is that the money local charities depend on is being drained into the national lottery. I mentioned this here about two years ago. I ask that we look at the national lottery and find some way of controlling it. Some of the moneys these charities are losing should be channelled back to them to assist them in the excellent work they are doing in these areas.
We had a debate on tourism recently and some excellent suggestions were made. What surprised me most was that many Senators seemed to be happy with the way tourism was being handled by the Government. I am far from happy. While Bord Fáilte do a good job in attracting tourists here, there is insufficient back-up. Let us take the matter of roads. I know we see some great roads such as the Athlone and other by-passes. These are excellent roads for taking you quickly from one point to another, but scant attention is being given to the towns and villages these roads by-pass. There should be some way of attracting tourists into the towns which they are missing. Many people come from Europe to make their way along our narrow roads. They are not looking for massive highways. Certain tourists want major highways to get from one side of the country to the other, but the greatest attractions we have are our people, our heritage, our small villages and our narrow roads. While we are building these by-passes we should also be making an effort to attract the tourists into the towns and villages of Ireland.
Many parts of Europe no longer have the narrow country roads we have, but what did the Government do last year? They cut the allocation for the upkeep of these roads by £6 million. That is what I mean when I say there is no back-up to Bord Fáilte. All their massive advertising abroad brings the tourists here to see what — deteriorating roads? There was a cut of £6 million in funding for roads in a year when we made history by electing at least four "pot-hole" councillors in one county. This is a very serious problem. It would not surprise me if magazines promoting tourism in other countries were to write about our pot-holes. The Minister has to pass hundreds of pot-holes on his way home. It is extraordinary that certain counties——