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FORMER MINISTER ALAN Kelly accused the government of carrying out an exercise in “window dressing” today as the Taoiseach and various ministers launched the latest HSE spending plan.
250 projects are being funded as part of the new capital plan for the health service, the government said this morning – including funding for 30 new primary care centres and two new emergency departments.
Leo Varadkar launched the plan at an event at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, accompanied by Minister for Health Simon Harris, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and a number of junior ministers.
Ministers sought to play down the National Children’s Hospital controversy as they outlined the planned investments, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisting that some politicians had been “scaremongering” about the project’s cost overrun.
Varadkar said “totally fake” claims had been made on how other projects would be affected by the overspend.
A figure of €983 million for the new hospital at the St James’s site in Dublin was approved by government in 2017, but the Public Accounts Committee heard earlier this year that the cost could rise to over €2 billion. A PWC report on the controversy, published in April, put the likely final cost at €1.7 billion.
“Projects do get delayed from time to time but not because of the National Children’s Hospital, they get delayed for lots of different reasons,” Varadkar said the press briefing today.
“I think this is a useful figure for people to understand: The National Children’s Hospital is a very expensive project and it is costing more than we thought it would but it still only accounts for 0.4% of total government spending this year and less than 1.5% of the health budget.
We still have lots of money for other projects all over the country, 250 of them being set out in this programme today.
Asked whether a hard Brexit or global downturn could impede the plans being discussed at today’s event Varadkar said:
It is the case that developments in the wider economy like, for example, a hard Brexit or a slowdown internationally can impact on the public finances but we are actually in a very good position in terms of our public finances.
Kelly, the Labour Party’s health spokesperson, said that many of the projects listed in the plan announced today were already known about “or are underway”.
He pointed out that the 2019 plan was being published eight months into the year, and added, in reference to the children’s hospital overrun: “In media interviews today, the Minister for Health has said it is not true to say that projects are being delayed, it’s because many projects now won’t happen at all.”
He added: “The delay in this plan being published shows the Children’s Hospital overspend is coming home to roost.”
In his speech at the event, Harris said that no-one in the country would regret building the children’s hospital.
Whoever is health minister when it’s completed, politicians “will be tripping over themselves” to go to the launch, Harris said.
This morning’s announcement comes against a backdrop of continuing negative headlines on developments in the health service, including a report this morning that overcrowding for August was, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the worst ever recorded in that month in Ireland.
Hospital waiting lists for outpatient appointments also reached a new high during the summer, with more than half a million people awaiting an appointment at the end of July.
The Taoiseach also answered questions about Brexit and tomorrow’s visit to Dublin of Mike Pence, where Brexit will also be high on the agenda.
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I’m getting a bit tired of these charities producing polls that they paid for that say the majority of Irish people agree with whatever policy the charity is trying to achieve. There’s a new one every week.
@Vestigial:
Do they pay for who responds to the polling?
@Ixtrix Net: wonder where all these polls take place. I’ve never been asked to take part in one
@Vestigial: Oh, but Americans benefited from Prohibition; let’s ban everything and sit in a shack reading the Bible. It’s for our own good, mar dhea.
@Vestigial: surely they should say 73% of people polled. Can’t really say 73% in Ireland unless they have asked everyone in Ireland.
@Vestigial: what do you think about the subject? Do you think its a good idea to make the legal age to buy tobacco 21?
@Fiona Fitzgerald: where did you read about banning everything in the article?
Make cigarettes illegal for anyone born after 2003. Problem as good as solved in 10 years
@The Kerry Slug: Prescription only from your GP
@The Kerry Slug: Then we’ll have a black market with cigarettes that aren’t regulated, and it would eventually be easier to buy them underage. Just like how it’s easier for 15 year olds to buy cannabis than to buy alcohol.
@Tomo: You are going to have a black market anyways as we have seen so why not just ban them outright. Black market or no black market , a complete ban will save a lot of lives every year. It will also free up hospital beds etc for other illnesses that need to be treated. I smoked for many a year and it all started with easy access to the cancer sticks, if I did not have the easy access in my teens, more than likely I would never have taken up the habit. Oh how I wish now that they were banned outright before I started.
@The Kerry Slug: Thats honestly the stupidist comment I’ve read this week. Name one time prohibition of anything has ever worked?
@The Kerry Slug: Make driving a petrol/diesel car illegal to drive by anyone born after 2003. Help solve our climate issue.
@The Kerry Slug: You can’t ban something out of existence. If there’s a market there will be a supply. Kids have much easier access to banned drugs then to legal ones and a lack of a regulated market makes the product more dangerous for the consumer. We’re being held back as a nation waiting for people like you to catch up particularly with regard to cannabis. Put simply, your thinking is debunked, outdated and incorrect. Please catch up.
@Black Iron Tarkus: I would generally agree that prohibition is pointless when banning something desirable or useful. But who in their right mind would actively seek out nicotine as an illegal drug if they werent already hooked on it? To make it illegal now but still available on prescription for addicts might save a few younger lives down the line
@Nameo Maximus: Then alcohol? And sugar? Possibly set up a direct debit to spend our savings on television instead? It’s for our own good, why consult us at all if we’re no longer living in a free country?
@Black Iron Tarkus: You don’t get it lad. Kids ween themselves onto cigarettes by the very nature of them being accessible. In smoking areas etc. Of course you’d get a black market but also probably a 90% reduction in uptake. We complain about the health service being inadequate, well we have to hold up our side of the bargain too.
@Roy Dowling: Fantastic comparison Roy. Really great stuff. Fair play to you.
@Declan Doherty: Imagine a nation without smokers. Would be class. I’m all for legalising weed Declan. I think the difference between tobacco and weed is night and day. If heroine was legal a lot more people would do it. When you live in a society you get to decide what’s best for people. Especially when we have a shared health service.
@The Kerry Slug: it wasn’t supposed to be a comparison. It’s supposed to be as stu pid as your original comment.
I don’t care if 99.9% if people think it should be banned, it’s my body and my choice.
@John Duggan: that’s fine saying that when you have the maturity to make the choice. Should we let kids run amok and get hooked on alcohol and drugs in their early teens because ‘it is their body, their choice’ ?
@James Beattie: James, kids have easier access to banned products than legal regulated ones. You should try warming up your bra1n cell before making comments.
@James Beattie: yes. A generation of alcoholics and smokers is a small price to pay for my freedom.
Obviously I’m joking, but the article is about raising the age to 21 (3 years into adulthood) while I never mention reducing the age limit. I certainly don’t believe children should be allowed to smoke or drink (although a little red wine with dinner won’t kill them).
@John Duggan:
Your choice if you smoke it in your own home (assuming you own your home and aren’t ruining a rented place with the smell). I shouldn’t have to breath in that disgusting cloud of poison on the street or at the bus stop.
Smoking in public is a bit obnoxious behaviour tbh. Aside from the health effects of second hand smoke, it smells rank and the rank smell clings to clothes.
@David Bourke: get over yourself
@Darren Sheridan:
No u
@James Beattie: “Should we let kids run amok and get hooked on alcohol and drugs in their early teens”
It’s already illegal to sell alcohol or cigarettes to anyone under 18 so that’s kids ‘in their early teens’ covered.
Obviously that doesn’t stop many kids of that age from obtaining alcohol and cigarettes nor will raising the legal age to 21.
We love passing feel good legislation in this country, makes us feel like we’re making a difference.
The fact is, an 18 year old is an adult and we shouldn’t be restricting the lives of adults with legislation that we then pretend is aimed at protecting children.
@John Duggan: Your choice now but when you end up in a hospital bed with lung cancer or emphysema will you be glad with your choice then. A complete waste of health care resources on you but we will still try keep you alive through hour misery.
@Splat: You could make the same arguments about fat people or any number of other people who’s life choices ultimately lead to their demise. Where do you stop?
@John Duggan: Except I will be paying for your terminal/hospice care when you eventually develop cancer or COPD. And it is a terrible and preventable way of dying.
@John Duggan: Except I will be paying for your terminal/hospice care when you eventually develop cancer or COPD. And it is a terrible (and preventable way of dying.
@John Duggan: Except I will be paying for your terminal/hospice care when you eventually develop cancer or COPD. And it is a terrible (and preventable) way of dying.
My gran always says most of the men of her generation were dead early because they smoked and drank alcohol
Strange times we live in, at 16 people can leave school and enter fulltime employment.
At 17 people can give consent to have sex, they can also apply for a car driving licence.
At 18 people can choose how they identify in terms of gender, they can marry someone of the same gender or a different gender, they can also legally purchase alcohol, they can also join the Armed forces or Garda and serve their country.
And yet some people apparently believe that these very same adults, are not old enough to make their own decisions about tobacco?
So you can join the army at 18, getting shipped around the globe and potentially have to kill someone, but you’ll have to wait 3 more years to buy some cigarettes.
Makes sense :-)
@Wolfgang Bonow: Both based on the same principle, sign em up as young & dummb as possible before they realise what theyve gotten themselves into! #DeathLottery
I saw 2 Francie Brady’s fogging for death near me last night if they were 7 they were lot,smoke was nearly bigger than them haha smoking bad people stay clear….
@Mark Murphy: what were two 7yr olds doing out at night? Where were you that they were standing beside you smoking?
@This time its personable!: Probably putting a bet on at the bookies.
@Sean May: you’re right, well known that kids love the all weather racing.
They should add another year for the vape products. It should take at least that long to get addicted and then decide to give up.
Cigarettes should be encouraged it makes room for the next generation on the planet
have your say