Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore has called on the Taoiseach to reform the HSE and solve the problems currently plaguing the health service.
Eamon Gilmore: called on Taoiseach to reform health service
Speaking in the Dáil this morning, Mr Gilmore said overlapping layers of administration were taking up budgets that should be going towards provinding front line healthcare.
He called on the Government to implement new reforms that the Labour Party proposed last week.
"It's long past time that you sorted out the mess in the health service, reformed the health Service Executive and provided the care to patients that we as taxpayers are paying for," he told the Taoiseach.
The topic was raised after news that about 120 temporary jobs were to go at Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin.
According to internal HSE figures, the hospital has already gone €3.2 million over budget in the first three months of 2008, and had 268 staff over its approved employment ceiling.
"The problem here is that the body you set up to run the health service is not doing it efficiently," said Mr Gilmore.
A heated debate broke out in the Dáil when Mr Cowen accused the Opposition of "wanting it every way" and said that he "fundamentally" disagreed with any suggestion that the health service could be improved without any reference to the budgets that are allocated to it.
"We have to live within those budgets, otherwise we can't develop the health service," he said.
Mr Cowen said the only way to ease the current crisis was to support the Government's proposed reforms for the Health service.
"We have had a lot of involvement in the past by local representatives and health board level - that didn't solve the problem either," he said.
"What will solve the problem is to support the reforms that we are trying to bring about, which make sure we have greater investment in community care and that we can't have a situation where the acute hospital sector takes up all the allocation to the extent that it is taking it up."
He said the resources were being increased significantly, but that people needed to work within the budgets.
"People can come in here and continue to argue for the status quo. The status quo will not solve the problem," said Mr Cowen.