An announcement by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, that agreement has been reached with the Department of Finance on funding for the phased opening of existing healthcare facilities, bears all the hallmarks of a minister clearing his desk.
The facilities, which cost an estimated €400 million to build, became the source of a public scandal earlier this year when they lay idle because the money had not been provided to staff and equip them. Fianna Fáil lost votes in the local and European elections as a consequence and backbench TDs subsequently demanded that the necessary money be provided.
The time-scale of two years outlined by Mr Martin for the funding of the new services should make the various facilities operational in time for the coming general election. By that stage, however, Mr Martin is likely to have been given responsibility for another Department as part of an extensive Cabinet reshuffle that, last week, saw the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, being nominated as Ireland's EU Commissioner. It will be September before the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, decides such issues and, in the meantime, a considerable amount of work will have gone into shaping the Government's estimates for 2005.
No matter what political considerations underlie the decision to open and staff these medical facilities, the very fact that the Department of Finance is now prepared to release the funding must be welcomed. It will cost an estimated €35million for the remainder of this year to start the process of bringing them on line and €60million in a full year. In addition, the embargo on new jobs being created within the health services has been relaxed in order to staff these particular units.
The fact that the level of Government borrowing will be at least €1 billion lower than was predicted at Budget time has made Mr Martin's task easier in this matter. Elsewhere, however, there are huge demands for extra resources. His Department is under pressure to compensate junior doctors for a reduction in the extent of their overtime hours. Negotiations on a common contract with consultants have not been finalised.
The whole thrust of the Hanly report on hospital reform is under threat, even as the demand to raise the eligibility threshold for medical cards grows and the Irish Nurses' Organisation describes overcrowding in hospitals as a national emergency.
In view of the extent of those difficulties, it is perhaps understandable at this time that Mr Martin and Mr McCreevy should seek to resolve and ring-fence an issue that gave Fianna Fáil such grief in the elections of last June.