With the permission of the House, I would like to share my time with Senator Cosgrave and Senator Norris.
Adjournment Matters. - Tallaght Hospital Project.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I raised the subject early in the life of this new Government because of the commitments given by the Labour Party in particular, but also by other parties during and since the election campaign on the future of the Adelaide Hospital. I welcome the Minister to the House in whose constituency the Tallaght Hospital will be located. It is appropriate that he should be here and I am grateful to him for coming. I should remind the House of the commitments made. The Programme for a Partnership Government states that the ethos and traditions of the Adelaide Hospital will be fully protected in the broad structure and management of the new hospital. The second commitment was specific and was given by Mr. Barry Desmond, MEP, the Labour Party's Director of Elections, during the negotiations on the Programme for a Partnership Government. He said that not only would it be a major issue within the discussions but that the Labour Party had always been emphatically supportive of the Adelaide's position. The Adelaide Hospital was extremely grateful for this statement, both during and since the election campaign.
This story has been going on for a long time. The Minister will be aware that negotiations between the Meath Hospital, the National Children's Hospital and the Adelaide Hospital have broken down on two occasions. There have been 39 meetings and they have been unable to reach agreement. I was disappointed to hear that, following a meeting with the Minister, a third round of negotiations was proposed. I do not believe there is hope that yet another round of negotiations will resolve this problem which has proved so intractable. It is time for the Government to take direct action, to put its money where its mouth is, to fulfil the commitment it gave before, during and after the election campaign and in the Programme for a Partnership Government.
The first question I would like the Minister to answer is what plans the Government have to honour this commitment? Will structures be put in place, or is the Government going to toss this problem back into the court of the three hospitals who cannot agree? The Government, and in particular the Labour Party, has committed itself to a principle that the liberal ethos of the Adelaide Hospital will be preserved and protected. Given that the three hospitals cannot agree on this principle, Government protection is needed. The Adelaide Hospital must have more than reassuring noises from the Labour Party and the Government; it must have action and it must have that action as soon as possible. It is no secret that the Adelaide Hospital was disturbed by the lack of commitment from the last Government to the protection of this ethos. People became impatient with the reassuring noises which were followed by no action.
A bigger issue here is how we, as a nation, treat minorities. It is more than just the Adelaide Hospital that is involved in this. Senator Norris and I represent a significant number of people from Northern Ireland in this House — in relation to this, I am delighted to see Senator Wilson in the Chamber — and the one issue which keeps recurring in correspondence is the Adelaide Hospital and what the Government in the Republic is doing about it. They see this as a litmus test for how we, as a Catholic country, treat our Protestant minority and if we are liberal minded. If we are to convince them that we are serious about liberalism — I doubt if we all are although I believe the Labour Party's commitment is genuine but we want to see action on it — we should give the Adelaide Hospital guarantees that the liberal ethos and the nursing school will be preserved. It is an issue of a medical ethos as well; it is an issue of doctor-patient confidentiality. It is important that issues, such as fertility, contraception and genetic counselling, are respected as a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality and that the Adelaide Hospital is given these guarantees immediately.
We can make a fresh start today by getting a solid commitment from the Minister that action, other than sending the parties back for talks which have already broken down, will be forthcoming. This is a vital issue in North-South relations.
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I do not want to start the discussion because I have not had an opportunity to consult with the board of the Adelaide Hospital. I understand delicate negotiations are in progress. I hope there will be a degree of flexibility.
Both I and the Minister know that the people of Tallaght need a hospital and that this wrangling ought to stop. It is important that the ethos of the Adelaide Hospital be preserved. One deprecates the phraseology of Protestant ethos versus Catholic ethos. The difficulty, however, is that there are Catholic ethics committees in almost all the other hospitals and they reflect a narrow view in which certain perfectly legal procedures are prohibited and which the Adelaide Hospital allows. As Senator Ross said, it repects the primacy of the confidential relationship between the patient and the doctor. For that reason, the Protestant ethos can include the Catholic ethos but not the other way around. I also ask the Minister for a satisfactory response.
May I make a comment?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Senator Ross can decide as Senator Cosgrave is not here and there is one minute left.
I am happy to share my time with Senator Wilson.
I do not represent the Protestant people of Northern Ireland but I am one of them. I assure you this is an issue about which many Protestant people in Northern Ireland are greatly concerned. I hear this subject from pulpits, I read it in papers, and as Senator Ross has said, it is perceived as a litmus test of the Government's intention to abide by its undertaking in relation to the Adelaide Hospital.
I am glad the Senator has given me an opportunity to reiterate the Government's commitment to the Tallaght Hospital project.
The hospital will have 467 beds with full state of the art support facilities and will incorporate the Meath Hospital, the Adelaide Hospital and the National Children's Hospital, Harcourt Street.
The Government is committed to the protection of the ethos and traditions of the Adelaide Hospital and the other two hospitals. This reassurance has been given on many occasions by previous Ministers for Health and I am happy to repeat it again today.
In relation to the question of adequate funding for the Adelaide Hospital, I would like to emphasise that the allocation of Government resources to the health sector for 1993 represents some 21 per cent of overall Government supply services spending. This represents an increase of some 5 per cent to 6 per cent on the 1992 out-turn figure. It is the Minister for Health's intention to make available to each health agency a level of funding sufficient to maintain services at the 1992 approved levels generally.
Inherent in the achievement of this aim is the need for individual health agencies to utilise resources as efficiently as possible and, in order that this might be achieved, efficiency targets have been set for agencies in payroll, non-pay and income areas.
With particular reference to the Adelaide Hospital, I wish to make it clear to the House that the Minister for Health will be providing the hospital with the funds necessary to maintain the service levels approved by his Department for 1992. Following the notification to the hospital of their non-capital allocation for 1993, which will issue shortly, discussions will take place between officers of his Department and the hospital regarding the management of the funding and service levels during 1993.
The ethos of the Adelaide Hospital has played a distinctive role in the development of Irish healthcare. This is in no small part due to the quality of its nurse training. In this regard, I am particularly pleased to repeat again to the Seanad the categorical assurances given by previous Ministers for Health that this tradition will be maintained in the new hospital at Tallaght and that 40 places in the new nursing school will be reserved for nurses from the Adelaide tradition.
The Protestant Community has expressed its concern that the hospital's valuable tradition may in some way be diminished if it were to join with the Meath and the National Children's Hospital, and move out to Tallaght. Indeed, the two other hospitals may well echo those sentiments in relation to their own particular traditions, which have also made a substantial contribution to the delivery of health services in this country. It is important that the unique traditions associated with all three hospitals are protected so that the transfer to the new hospital in Tallaght will be successful and that the high quality of patients care which has always been their hallmark can be strengthened and developed at Tallaght.
I can again confirm that the construction of Tallaght Hospital is the top Government priority in the health capital programme and will commence as soon as possible this year. The project is proceeding with all possible speed.
On Friday, 19 February last, the Minister for Health met with the Tallaght Hospital Board and the three hospitals involved — the Adelaide, the Meath and the National Children's Hospital to ensure that the necessary planning and tender documentation changes were finalised as quickly as possible. The Minister also met with the Tallaght Hospital Action Group and Tallaght Community Council on 26 February to inform them of progress on the project.
The Tallaght Hospital Board was asked by the Minister for Health to finalise the revised functional content of the hospital within two weeks and I am glad to report that the agreed revised functional content document was submitted to the Minister for Health this morning by the Tallaght Hospital Board Chairman, Professor Richard Conroy.
The Minister for Health has also informed the Meath, Adelaide and National Children's Hospitals that Professor David Kennedy and Mr. David Kingston have agreed to act as facilitators with regard to an agreement between the three hospitals on the Board structure and management for the new hospital. The Minister has asked for this work to be completed by June of this year. I understand that this process is now underway. The Minister for Health and I are confident that with the necessary goodwill and co-operation on all sides it will be possible to reach an agreement which fully protects the interests of all parties.
Senator Ross in his statement asked for a Government guarantee that the ethos of the Adelaide Hospital would be preserved in Tallaght. I refer Senator Ross and the other Senators to the Programme for a Partnership Government in which the Tallaght Hospital project is the only project singled out for specific mention. I draw the attention of the House to the specific written guarantee given in that Programme that the ethos of the Adelaide Hospital will be preserved in Tallaght. There could be no greater commitment to the Adelaide than that written statement specifically and unusually put into the Programme for Government.
Finally, I wish to confirm again to the Seanad and to the people of Tallaght in particular that the Minister for Health has put in place an action plan to ensure that the building commences at the earliest possible date in 1993.
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am not sure that I share his confidence about goodwill and co-operation on all sides ensuring the success of these negotiations in view of the fact that they have already broken down once. I ask the Minister what action he intends taking if they break down on this issue.
Ideally it would not be advisable for the Minister for Health to impose a solution or an agreement on the three interests concerned. I am sure the Senator will agree that it would be preferable for the three parties concerned who are going to have to work together as doctors and hospital staff during the coming year to reach their own agreement by mutual discussions and negotiation. That may be difficult and may require compromise and give and take on all sides; these elements are part and parcel of all negotiations. Talks may be difficult and complex given the different interests to be considered. The Minister for Health will provide every encouragement and facility possible to ensure that in this part of Ireland sufficient goodwill can be generated to establish a hospital incorporating two distinct ethoses.
Nobody suggests that Tallaght Hospital is going to be the Adelaide Hospital or the Meath Hospital or the National Children's Hospital transferred to Tallaght. It will be a merger of the three which should give strength and value to all sides. I have no hesitation in reiterating the guarantee included in the Programme that the ethos of the Adelaide will be preserved. It should be possible with goodwill on all sides to reach mutual agreement on a modus operandi for this hospital which is needed not only by the people of Tallaght but all the people in Dublin south-west.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Thank you, Minister. I understand it is the Minister's first time in this House. I welcome him to the House and wish him every good luck in his Department.