Richard Boyd Barrett: Challenges Taoiseach's 'spin' on health plan
Richard Boyd Barrett criticised the Taoiseach and the minister for praising health workers while backing a return to private healthcare and renting capacity from private providers. He argued that this approach undermines the case for a single-tier universal health system and fails to secure permanent staffing increases.
Main allegation
Barrett accused the Taoiseach and the minister of engaging in 'spin' - he said their praise of health workers rang hollow because the deal they support would reopen private healthcare and rent additional capacity via the NTPF, which he said risks returning the system to a two-tier model.
Capacity and staffing concerns
He warned that capacity is primarily about staff, not beds, and said the system was already overstretched before COVID - running at 100% in parts and with ICU capacity about 50% below need. He argued the service needs permanent additional capacity - not temporary rented capacity - especially with social distancing requirements.
Problems with recruitment and contracts
Barrett highlighted that 70,000 people volunteered to return to the Health Service but claimed ministers are not approving enough permanent posts. He criticised the use of agency contracts and short-term 'firing' contracts and said fourth-year student nurses are being used as healthcare assistants with no secure commitment to retain them.
Sláinte Care and stated reform measures
He referenced Sláinte Care and the program for government measures mentioned in the debate - hiring public-only hospital consultants (1,000 public-only posts), a statutory home care scheme and elective hospitals to drive down waiting lists. He said commentators such as Paul Reid had urged broadening training schemes and keeping newly trained staff in Ireland.
Political rhetoric and consequences
Barrett characterised the ministers' performances as praise-heavy spin that conflicted with policy choices to rent private capacity from named private providers. He framed this as a political and practical contradiction between the aspiration of a universal health system and the immediate decision to source capacity from private interests.
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Minister, I saw the Taoiseach on Primetime having fun at Sinn Fein's expense and referring to them as, what was it? Spinfane. Spinfane. And I thought, to be honest, that was ironic listening to him and I thought it was even more ironic when I listened to you and Stephen Donnelly today when I think, frankly, the performances by the Taoiseach on Primetime, yours today and Stephen Donnelly's suggests that it's more about spin a gale and spin a fall. And I mean that in all sincerity because, you see, you take your speech, I could, there's almost nothing I could disagree with. It was a great speech. Heaping praise on our health workers. We must never go back. Absolutely. We must never go back. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I don't know if you wrote it or as a speech writer, but I couldn't agree more. But then the truth is revealed when Stephen Donnelly gets up. And it's very clear that the party with whom you've just agreed a deal, and the deal itself, make a clear and explicit commitment to go back. Not to go forward, but to go back. And that commitment is to reopen private healthcare, and to source the additional capacity that we now need more than ever. We need it badly before COVID, and we now need even more badly. More capacity is required, but it's going to be sourced through a deal, the NTPF, right? Where we're going to rent it, where we're going to rent it off the profiteers in the private healthcare sector, rather than move immediately forward, not back, as you suggested you wanted to do, to a national health system. To a single tier, universal national healthcare system. So we can have all the aspiration towards slantia care, 10 years, accelerate, I think was the phrase, but in actuality, the plan is to immediately move back to the two tier system, and to source additional capacity by renting it at extortionate cost from Larry Goodman, and Dennis O'Brien, and all the people who make a fortune out of this stuff. And there is the spin, okay? There is the spin. And the heaping of praise, isn't it the case, that the heaping of praise on healthcare workers in the same context rings deeply hollow? In fact, it's hypocritical. Because, you see, what is capacity in the Irish Health Service? I mean, before COVID, we were running at 100% capacity. In the case of ICU capacity, we were 50% below what we needed to be, and now we need even more. But in the general system, we need at least 20%, and then with social distancing, we need more than that, permanent capacity. Not rented from the private sector, permanent capacity. If we're going to have a single tier health system, and in the ICU, we need more. Now, what is that capacity? It's the staff. It's not the beds, because we actually can get the beds pretty quickly, right? It's the staff. And how have we treated the staff, Minister? How are we treating the staff? Well, we know. 70,000 people, who you lauded, heaped praise on, and who deserve to be praised, volunteered to come back and work in the Health Service, and you just won't recruit them. And the Taoiseach says, on prime time to national television, says, anybody who wants to work in the Health Service, we'll hire them if there is. And this is the spin, if there's a post. Brilliant. If there's a post. But, of course, the number of approved posts is nowhere near what's necessary to give us the additional permanent capacity, because you won't approve the posts. Right? Isn't that the truth? So, instead, we recruit people on agency contracts, hire them in firing contracts, and we can throw them back out. And, by the way, the fourth-year student nurses, they can be thrown back out as health care assistants, and so on. There's no real commitment to the permanent increases in capacity. I'll give them 20 seconds to answer that. I think your skin doesn't fit as well into your party title, but you gave it a very good go there. I get a little bit upset, though, genuinely, when somebody suggests anyone is being hypocritical, praising staff. No political grouping owns them. They're all our families, friends, communities, constituents, and we're all very grateful for what they do. It is possible, to Pity Boyd Barrage, to create a universal health care system like the NHS and still live in a country where there is private health care. And that's what we're trying to do in this country. Not ban private health care, but create a universal health care system. I'm committed to it. I signed up to Sláinte Care. I don't know if you guys did, and I don't mean that smartly. We've signed up to Sláinte Care. And if you look at the program for government or the draft program for government, hiring public-only hospital consultants, hiring 1,000 of them who can only carry out public work, paying them a decent salary, but only public work, that's how you create a public health service system. Statutory home care scheme, that's how you create one. The elective hospitals to drive down waiting lists. We're going to deliver Sláinte Care, and we are going to accelerate it, but I guess we'll get to debate that at another time. We are going to hire significant additional staff, and you will have heard Paul Reid's comments today about broadening the number of training schemes. And I did say we do have a once-in-a-generation chance to keep these people here in Ireland.
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