Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 11 Apr 1929

Vol. 29 No. 2

Public Business. - Vote No. 44—Hospitals and Infirmaries.

The President

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £2,298 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1930, chun Eilithe mar gheall ar Ospidéil agus Otharlanna maraon le hIldeontaisí i gCabhair.

That a sum not exceeding £2,298 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1930, for Charges connected with Hospitals and Infirmaries, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

Minister for Local Government and Public Health (General Mulcahy)

This Estimate explains the position with regard to these grants, that they are grants that have continued, arising out of the recommendations of the Committee, since 1854 and 1855. It is, however, to be pointed out that there is a saving on this Vote this year of £2,298. The accounts of these hospitals are presented to a committee of superintendents, which supervises their work. On examination of the accounts, it appeared that the income of the House of Industry Hospitals and the Cork Street Fever Hospitals was such that, instead of a grant of £7,600, the state of their finances would warrant that a grant of only £5,000 would be given under that to the House of Industry Hospitals; and that in the case of Cork Street, instead of the grant of £2,500, £2,170 should only be given and reductions to that extent have accordingly been made.

Mr. O'Kelly

I had a good deal to say on this subject last year, and while there has been a reduction of £2,298 on the Estimate this year, it does not get over what I had in mind in raising the subject last year, and does not satisfy me even now that we are doing the right thing in voting this Estimate as it stands. I am not particularly anxious to take any money from these hospitals. I am not particularly anxious to abolish any of the sums that are mentioned here going to any hospital doing work with which the Ministry is satisfied. What I do complain of is merely because this money was voted by the British House of Commons in 1854 as a result of a Commission report it has been continued ever since. Probably similar amounts have been voted every year in the old days by the British authorities, and since this House was established by this Dáil here similar amounts have been voted each year. This year there is a change. What I would wish to have done is to have the promise that was made by the Minister for Local Government in 1925 carried out and have the whole question of grants to hospitals, not alone these hospitals, but other hospitals, re-examined. It would, presumably, be a hardship on these hospitals, I suppose on all of them, at any rate on most of them, if they were to lose the grants which are made to them here in this Vote each year. These grants here are all confined to Dublin hospitals, but other hospitals in Dublin and in other parts of the Free State that are doing equally good work for the poor get no grant. So far as this House and Vote are concerned, there is favouritism shown, and although nobody will doubt that the different hospitals here, at least some of them —the Rotunda Lying-in Hospital and the Coombe Lying-in Hospital— are doing very good work for the poorest class of our people, nevertheless there are other hospitals that are doing equally good work and getting no grant, and why should this House show favouritism of the kind? There is one Hospital, the Westmoreland Lock Hospital, I do not know where it is——

Sir James Craig

Townsend Street.

Mr. O'Kelly

It gets £6,200. I have heard its name, but I do not know why the hospital is entitled to a grant of £6,200. I see no reason why this House should single out that hospital merely because a British Commission decided 70 odd years ago that a State grant should be given. We simply took up that list of grants as made by that old authority and we are continuing it. It will go on indefinitely unless somebody insists that a change be made. I said last year that I did not like asking the House to divide on this Vote, and I do not like asking the House to divide on it to-day, but I would be glad if the Minister would give a promise that the grants here in this Estimate would be re-examined, and that before an estimate of that kind would be agreed to by the House again we would be given some explanation as to why, after further examination, perhaps by his own medical inspectors or any committee he likes to set up, there should be favouritism shown as far as these hospitals are concerned, and whether it is advisable to continue the list as it stands, to add to it or to take from it. I think some promise of that kind of re-examination should be given by the Minister before we allow this Vote to pass again this year.

General Mulcahy

I would like to say that I would not be prepared to give a promise to re-examine this matter. My attitude on this matter is more or less what was suggested on the last two occasions on which matter. My attitude on this matter is more or less what was suggested on the last two occasions on which this Estimate was discussed. Here you have hospitals undoubtedly doing useful work and whose finances undoubtedly require this assistance. Their whole economy financially has been built around the fact that they have received this assistance from 1854. In the first place, to take these monies from these hospitals when an examination of their accounts shows that it would put them into debt, would be one injustice, and an injustice that I think would be uncalled for without taking into consideration the long period over which these hospitals have had this assistance, in order to enable them to do their work. The fact that in the Estimate that is before the House now, in the case of two of the hospitals, a reduction has been made is the only kind of guarantee that can be given or that I feel the House will ask for, and should the finances of these hospitals, for one reason or another, be such that a case cannot be made for the giving of public monies to assist them the House will not be asked to give it. I had a certain amount of reluctance in making the reductions in this Estimate that have been made, but I felt that our general financial position was such that we would have to make a very strong case for giving an hospital money when its balance sheet showed that it was not required.

Vote put and agreed to.