The Department of Health will have to join the queue when it comes to demanding extra funding in the Budget, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has said following yesterday's all day Cabinet meeting on the crisis in the health services.
Ministers met in Ballymascanlon, Co Louth, to discuss the crisis in the health services. Despite expectations, there were no announcements following the 41/2-hour meeting concerning extra funding or measures to be taken to tackle the problems.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, had said beforehand that "significant figures" would need to be spent and decisions had to be taken.
The Opposition parties described the meeting as a cynical public relations exercise.
Mr McCreevy said afterwards no decisions had been made at the meeting. The amount of money to be spent on health would be decided in the Estimates at the end of the year and he would expect value for money. While there had been some improvements, he had made his dissatisfaction known previously on how the "enormous" amounts of money already allocated had been spent.
"I have already alluded over a period of years that I am not happy with how it's being spent in the health area. I have made that quite clear on many, many occasions." Mr McCreevy said the money to be spent next year on health would have to be evaluated and taken into the context of budgetary strategy and the overall economic situation.
Yesterday's meeting was convened by the Taoiseach, who is concerned that bad publicity on health issues will become a major problem in an election year. The Government's plans will be revealed in July with the launch of a new strategy for the health services which will be expected to map out where the service is going over the next seven years.
When he briefed his Cabinet colleagues yesterday, Mr Martin said up to 5,000 hospital beds at a cost of £2 billion would be needed over the next 10 years. He emphasised that money was not the only solution and had to be coupled with reform of the structure of the health services, the employment of more doctors, changes in primary care and greater emphasis on community care facilities.
Ministers were also told of the need for investment in capital projects, the crisis in accident and emergency departments, the number of people on waiting lists and the measures needed to cope with an increasingly elderly population. There are 28,000 people on waiting lists for hospital treatment.
Mr Martin admitted he was not satisfied that 43 per cent of those people were waiting for more than 12 months.
Afterwards he said the purpose of the meeting had been to give particular consideration to the health services. He had "signalled very clearly what is coming down the tracks" to the Cabinet and there was a "very full ventilation" of the issues.
This was an opportunity, he said, for ministers to give their input into the new health strategy as it was being formulated.