Martin deluding himself on cuts say Fine Gael

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin is deluding himself when he chooses to dress up health cutbacks as harmless budgetary adjustments which will not hurt services, Fine Gael said last night.

FG health spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said his claims about the harmless nature of the cuts were not fooling anyone: “You simply can’t withdraw money from the budgets of the country’s health boards halfway through the year without causing chaos to the delivery of health services to the country’s patients.” She was responding to the minister’s insistence yesterday that the Government is not demanding the country's health boards to cut back in hospital services.

The minister said difficult choices would have to be made in relation to future taxation, but he insisted that no lives will be put at risk by the freezing of 85 new posts in the Western Health Board.

“I remember the 80s when a cutback meant you took out whole services and whole agencies were abolished,” the Minister told RTE radio. He rejected Opposition claims that his department was just massaging figures before the election to hide the real problem in the health services.

The Minister questioned the Western Health Board’s claim that it needed to cut 200 jobs to stay within budget - he said he had just asked for 85 new jobs to be frozen. This adjustment to the health board’s budget was marginal in terms of their overall finances and did not amount to a cutback, Minister Martin insisted.

His officials will meet with WHB officials this week in a bid to resolve the problem. However, Fine Gael claimed that the minister is not fooling anyone when he says his actions will not result in cutbacks. “The Emperor of Irish health is without clothes,” Deputy Olivia Mitchell said.

The budget cuts demanded by the minister were real and deep cuts and will result in real and deep hardship for patients and clients of the health services, Ms Mitchell claimed. As we enter the fourth quarter of the budgetary year, the reality is that health board services are now withdrawn as the promised allocations have, in many cases, already been spent, Deputy Mitchell added.

Asked if tax increases would be necessary to finance the national health strategy, Mr Martin said Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy has ruled nothing in or out, but he said he would be discussing next year’s budget shortly with the finance minister and he would be impressing on him the need to maintain current services and develop cardiovascular and cancer research.