Promises on health must be honoured

THE three greatest certainties in Irish political life are lies, damn lies and broken election promises. People are now complaining about the dishonest Fianna Fáil promises, but they should remember that Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin all made similarly lavish promises as they vied with each other.

This was particularly apparent in their utopian prescriptions for the health service.

Despite an insistence as late as mid May that "no cutbacks whatsoever are being planned, secretly or otherwise" the Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, is now insisting on drastic cuts in Government expenditure. Minister for Health Micheál Martin is insisting, however, there will be no effective cuts to health. He has been bragging that the Department of Health has already increased its budget by 118 million this year. His department has largely escaped the latest belt-tightening demands of the Minister for Finance.

The Department of Health was compelled to bring in expenditure cuts of 38m, but this has been done by increasing various service charges. Mr Martin insists: "There will be no cutbacks on capital projects." In effect, he plans to go ahead with various capital projects by borrowing to fund his promised world-class health service. His party's election pledges included new hospitals, 12,000 extra nurses and consultants and effectively ending waiting lists.

He is outlining a plan today to ensure all capital projects promised under the National Health Strategy will be fulfilled. He is launching a 170m building scheme to design, build, finance and operate seventeen community nursing units for the elderly in the southern and eastern health regions.

The project will initially be funded by the private sector in a triangular approach involving public-private partnership, exchequer funding and the new National Development Finance Agency. The State will then repay the money over a long period like a mortgage.

Tenders have already been sought from the private sector to build the proposed community nursing units, which will each provide rehabilitative and respite care for 50 elderly patients. Nine of those units will be the under the Eastern Regional Authority, and the other eight under the Southern Health Board.

The minister says that those will be operational in two years.

The two health authorities had already proposed projects to the Department of Health that could be funded by public-private partnership, but the minister insists that he will accept projects proposed by other health boards using the same means of funding.

There is nothing wrong with borrowing to fund necessary projects. The Department of Education has already used the public-private partnership to speed up the building of a number of schools around the country. This is a form of borrowing and the Government should be honest and straightforward about what it is doing. In a democracy such as ours, the Government should be leading, not deceiving the people. There has been too much deception already on all sides of the political fence.