I came in this evening to say a few brief words and to make three points. First, my party are not supporting these Estimates as we did last year because we believe there is increasing evidence of the Government becoming essentially a Government of accountants and book keepers without adequate respect or understanding of the overriding obligation on Governments to concern themselves with the quality of life of people. The Government are much too narrowly focused in terms of looking at the columns of figures rather than at the queues of people at the unemployment exchanges or the hospitals waiting to be looked after.
I am disappointed therefore that that evidence is not increasingly obvious to a party who, whatever other faults some of us might have said they had in the past, were believed to have a feeling for the quality of life of people. I have never seen a group of Cabinet Ministers become so out of touch with reality so quickly as have the members of this Government.
I find it incomprehensible that a Minister for Health should try to defend the indefensible in the face of the evidence all about him that there is a very serious crisis of both morale and quality of service in the hospitals. It is preposterous that the Minister for the Environment, in the wake of these Estimates, can deny in the Dáil, as he did yesterday, that there is likely to be any difficulty in the area of housing when it is perfectly clear that there will be a major shortfall in the area of units of accommodation available for those at present listed for such accommodation.
I am saddened about that because there was a broad area of agreement that a Government that got down to the job of trying to correct the public finances needed some basis of reasonable understanding from Opposition parties to some extent that understanding, which was evident and was available, has been abused, because there is a corresponding obligation on a minority Government not to act as if they had a majority. Unless the honest and genuine concerns of people in all parties, including the Government party, about the quality of life of people is taken on board, undoubtedly this Government will have failed, not just from the point of view of delivering a quality of service, but electorally, although that is not necessarily the most important failure in this context.
I am disappointed that the overriding concern the Government have, even in areas like health and environment, seems to be with the absolute obligation to balance the books. I have been naive to believe that that was the job of the Minister for Finance who dealt with that internally and related his concerns and his strictures to his colleagues but I thought that the job of the Minister for the Environment was to concern himself with environmental issues in the broadest sense of the word and that the job of the Minister for Health was to do likewise in the health area. The reality is that in the health area, for example, there has been a number of incidents in the last 12 to 14 months which have involved very serious questions over the way people have been treated or appear to have been treated in hospitals or referred home from hospitals and, in a number of cases, have died, allegedly as a result. I asked the Minister to investigate two cases and to put it mildly the results of both those investigations were not fully presented to the Dáil, to any member of the public, to the families concerned or to me.
I am aware that at present there is speculation about the closing of Temple Street Hospital, the only children's hospital on the north side of Dublin. I am not going to go into the implications which the closure of this hospital would have for the local community but this fear is widely propagated by those working in the hospital and by the unions representing them. It is impossible to get a clear pronouncement from the Government. People have a right to an adequate medical service and there is an overriding obligation on the Government to say in the context of the Estimate for the Department of Health: "Hold on a moment, let us see if the concern which is being widely voiced at all levels of the community is justified". I appeal to the Government to review their very hard approach to spending in the health area. Many of us would argue that there is room for better management systems and greater efficiency in the health area but in the meantime while we are waiting for the glorious day when those systems will be put in place we should remember that there are people who need attention but who are not getting it and who are being sent from Billy to Jack and sometimes from Jack to their homes without getting proper medical attention. It is the responsibility of the Minister for Health to ensure that that does not happen. I am aware of cases in my own constituency and in other constitutencies where this has occurred.
In recent times my party leader gave examples of cases where, for example, women had to give birth in a man's ward. It is intolerable that there are incredibly long waiting lists for basic services, particularly when we look at the details contained in the Estimates. For example, in the Estimate for the Department of the Environment there is an increase of 209 per cent under the heading "office premises" but when we come to deal with those people who are not represented in this House, such as travellers, we find naturally enough that there has been a reduction as apparently there is in every other area where it is politic and easy to clatter the weak. Ultimately, what the failure of the general medical service means is the creation of a two-tier health system with the ordinary patient who cannot afford VHI premiums having to depend on the general medical service. I have no doubt that the Government are failing to protect the wellbeing and health of those people. I do not get any pleasure from saying that because I wish the Government well in their efforts but at the same time there is no point in us failing to do our job which is to say that the people whom we represent have a right to be listened to, not just the economic masters who appear to dictate in every Department. I challenge the Government to address this concern and to review what is happening down along the line, at the cliff face, in the health area.
In relation to the Department of the Environment, in which I have a particular interest, have responsibility for on behalf of my own party and have some experience of having been a member of a local authority for many years, I can assure the Minister and the Government that there is a serious problem in that on the one hand the rate support grant is being slashed while on the other the increasing obligation on local authorities to carry out their statutory functions cannot be met because of a shortfall in funds. I take the view that it is simply not enough to ask for more funds for local authorities, I would prefer to see a major restructuring of the local authorities and the devolution of power in certain areas to local authorities, giving them the right to raise their own finances to deal with some of their responsibilities. While we are waiting for that kind of reform, and we have waited for decades for it, in the interim there is an overriding obligation on the Government to look after the interests of those who are at the end of the line in respect of all the services which local authorities exist to provide, such as housing and sanitary services.
I am aware of cases where the accommodation in which people are living is simply not fit for human habitation. I do not use those words in their legal sense which is a very narrow definition applied by the local authorities but in their commonsensical interpretation. During the past few years substantial progress has been made in the provision of housing but unfortunately a very serious problem is pending which will manifest itself in the next two or three years when the clawback in the area of investment for housing infrastructure will produce the inevitable crisis. There is an obligation on the Minister to explain precisely how that can be squared with the figure contained in the Estimate. I am aware that it is easy for someone to come into this House and pick out one or two of the Estimates and deal with them without looking at the broad picture but there are enough of us who are looking at the broad picture. It appears that the Taoiseach and his Ministers are also concerned about the broad picture and the broad picture ultimately can be narrowed down to individuals with their needs, fears and weaknesses and the need for people in this House to speak up on their behalf.
In the area of health there is a very serious problem. I am aware of one recent case where a boy suffering from leukaemia was referred to three different hospitals while suffering from a serious respiratory problem. In the context of that child being entitled to the same level of treatment as the loftiest in the land regardless of illness, that is not good enough and no concern about the national finances should take precedence over the health of that young boy.
For three and a half years I chaired the Committee of Public Expenditure who produced 26 reports on how this State wastes money. It does so day in, day out in many Departments. If we are serious about this we would start with our own house and the way in which money is spent within Departments and the lack of management systems and accountability within those Departments. We should consider the implications of the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the excellent work now being done by the Committee of Public Accounts under the chairmanship of Deputy Gay Mitchell. Every day that committee tell us how money is being wasted but apparently we are sacrosanct and the way in which Departments organise their affairs goes unscathed and those who make mistakes and to be fair those who do excellent work are left as they are. That is not good enough.
When we come to the broad picture of the public finances I am not that impressed because at the bottom of it all I see a queue of people who believe that the public representatives are there to do something about the quality of their lives. Essentially therefore what I want to say about this Book of Estimates is that it amounts to a set of figures, and their presentation allow Ministers to stand up and say that we are making progress in some respects. The bottom line is that vast numbers of our people are being forced to emigrate and a growing number of our people are getting a degenerating health service. There is virtual anarchy in parts of our cities. I am in politics some 20 years and I have never seen a more serious crime problem then the one I have seen during recent months in the city centre of Dublin where gangs of young thugs, some of them as young as eight or nine years of age, systematically burn old people out of their homes under the eyes of their parents who apparently neither have the will nor the interest to do anything about it. I suspect that they are a generation of people who ten years ago had their own problems and now find themselves unable to cope. We are all aware of the lack of morale in the Garda Síochána — we have heard them refer to it — but there are serious problems in regard to the quality of life of those living in these areas.
Finally, all I want to say is that when all the figures are wiped away and all of us have done the best we can each of us in this House is in here ultimately to help those people because the strong will take care of themselves. In the context of worrying about the quality of life, this Government are failing abysmally. They hope that a combination of popular economic support from a number of commentators who do not see the texture of the lives of ordinary people, allied with the emigration boat, will keep them broadly on line. In my view that is not what they were elected to do.
I appeal to the Ministers involved, particularly the Ministers for Health and the Environment to go back to their roots, to visit the hospitals, preferably without a fanfare, and talk to their constituents, councillors and backbenchers and to listen to some people in the Opposition. Then they will know all is not right at that level. When we talk blithely about doing something about the public finances, we may be doing that at the expense of people who should not be dealt within that way. Those who are strong in the community, in the public service and in the Government Departments, have once again managed to insulate themselves from the need for attention at their level. That is what concerns me, and I believe I have been elected to say that in this House.
My party have endeavoured to extend some measure of support to this Government on occasional votes when it seemed proper to do so. Last year we were the only party to support the Government on the Estimates, despite the popular misconception to the contrary, but we are not doing that this year. We put the Government on notice that we believe that that facility, that willingness to assist, is being abused by a refusal to listen, a refusal to recognise their minority and, therefore, vulnerable position and, from my point of view, and by reference to the broad picture, without referring to the detail of the qualify of life of the people at the bottom of the scale who are suffering abysmally, and whom this Government appear to be willing to put to one side.
