Seamus Healy TD: I fully support the Tesco workers on strike tomorrow. Tesco make €250,000,000 in profit every year and refer to their Irish Business as “treasure island”. They have committed to paying dividends to their shareholders later this year whilst attempting to cut pay and conditions for their longest serving employees in Ireland by up to 20%. Please show your support for the workers and don’t pass the pickets. This strike is incredibly important for all workers in Ireland, if Tesco can set a precedent by effectively tearing up contracts of employment without agreement then no worker is safe.#TescoStrike #SupportTescoWorkers
Waiting Lists – Statement in the Dáil 09 February 2017
Seamus Healy TD:
The recent “RTE Investigates” programme told us what we have all known for many years. The nation was rightly shocked. It put the human face of pain and suffering on the figures. The public has been misled. The term “alternative facts” comes to mind. The public is entitled to, must be told and know the truth. The long waiting lists are the result of cuts to services by successive governments, for example, 2,000 beds have been taken out of the system, there is overcrowding in accident and emergency departments, posts are not filled and there is a moratorium on posts. I have been raising these issues for some time.
I recently raised the issue of the urology waiting list at University Hospital Waterford. A letter received by one of my constituents puts the case very plainly:
We are writing to inform you that you have been placed on … waiting list. We will forward you an appointment in due course.
You have been prioritised as: URGENT.
You should expect to be seen within 48+ months.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us.
The constituent must wait more than four years. The reply from the HSE and the Minister, which I received only yesterday, confirms that there is a major problem at University Hospital Waterford. It states, “The clinical risk for the Urology Services is on the Corporate Risk Register and is rated high risk.” The management at the hospital has applied for additional resources, two consultant urologists, support staff and funding to provide a proper service to the hospital. Those resources have not been provided. Will the Minister provide those resources not just for University Hospital Waterford but for all those from the south east, including Tipperary, using the services at the hospital?
Evidence given by Scottish and Welsh Water to the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services in Ireland identified €500million was wasted by Irish Water in installing domestic water meters.
I have as promised continued to follow up regarding the Urology Services at Waterford University Hospital where the waiting list is now 48-plus months. I asked Minister for Health Simon Harris what proposals he has to rectify the situation. He has referred my question to the HSE for reply. The HSE have forwarded the following reply.
“PQ *2541/17 “To ask the Minister for Health, in view of the fact that the Urology Outpatient Waiting list at University Hospital Waterford is now 48 months plus, the proposals he has to rectify the situation. [Seamus Healy].
The Health Service Executive has been requested to reply directly to you in the context of the above Parliamentary Question, which you submitted to the Minister for Health for response. I have examined the matter and the following outlines the position.
The total number of referrals to the Urology Service has increased by 90% since Urology commenced in University Hospital Waterford in 2015.
The management of the unprecedented demands faced on the Urology Service in University Hospital Waterford (UHW) is of high priority for UHW Executive Management Board and the Group Leadership Team of the South/South West Hospital Group SSWHG).
The clinical risk for the Urology Services is on the Corporate Risk Register and is rated high risk.
A number of possible solutions within South/South West Hospital Group are being explored including the possible availability of additional day case capacity in South Tipperary General Hospital STGH). It is planned that additional capacity for Urology day cases will become available in STGH in the 2nd quarter of 2017 following the opening of additional day case capacity in STGH.
UHW has also sought additional capacity within the SSWHG however the backlog of patients will require a special initiative.
In order to develop a sustainable solution UHW will continue to seek additional resources including Consultant Urologists and supporting services through the Estimates process. This will include additional cystoscopy and Outpatient Department sessions to ensure that the full presenting need will be met.
Following the approval and recruitment of additional Consultant Urologists, additional OPD, Operating Theatre and bed capacity will be required.”
I will continue to follow up and keep you updated.
Seamus Healy TD
Yesterday Deputy Healy continued to raise issues at the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services.
- Following up from previous meetings where he was informed that the metering programme would cease on 31 January 2017 I asked Irish Water for confirmation that the water metering programme had stopped and that contractors had been instructed to stop installing meters as of yesterday?
- He asked why Irish Water has no local offices or officials that the public can engage with directly?
- He asked why the public weren’t being notified re interruptions to water supply or planned maintenance by way of radio advertisements or leaflet drops?
- He also asked why Irish Water were cutting off supply to premises without notice or why they are cutting off supply at all?
He will as always keep you updated.
Deputy Healy raised with the Minister for Transport the issue of poor public transport, the continuous cancellation of services and the closure of routes for the people of Tipperary and indeed throughout Ireland.
Seamus Healy TD: I am sharing my time with Deputy Eamon Ryan. It is entirely proper that the Minister’s constituents and the people of Dublin have good quality public transport such as the DART, Luas and bus services, both in Dublin and from Dublin to all the major towns and cities throughout the country. The towns in my constituency such as Ballina, Nenagh, Roscrea, Templemore, Tipperary town, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Clonmel have substantially fewer transport rights and substandard bus and rail service. We have lost our bus routes in Carrick-on-Suir and the Minister and Iarnród Éireann want to close our rail lines through Ballybrophy, as well as the Limerick-Waterford line, where trains are cancelled almost on a daily basis and which is earmarked for closure by the Government. My constituents are entitled to the same adequate, good-quality transport service as are the people of Dublin. Far from cuts and the closure of routes, we need more services. The Minister should enact legislation to ensure more good quality transport services for all. The public, the elderly and social welfare recipients, wherever they are in the country, are entitled to a good quality public transport service at reasonable rates. Public transport services should not be subject to market forces as they are public services.
The current difficulties are as a result of Government policy going back at least as far as 2009, which has been continued under the Minister and the current Government. The subvention has been reduced from €44 million in 2009 to €33 million currently and the difficulty is anything but an industrial relations dispute. It is a policy issue that has been driven by the Minister and the Government. The difficult financial state of affairs of the company is largely as a result of the reduction in the subsidy and the free travel scheme, which is inadequately subvented by the Government.
The attack on Bus Éireann workers is a deliberate and vicious assault, not only on their pay but on their conditions. A 30% reduction in pay is absolutely unacceptable and must and will be opposed trenchantly by the workers. It is more than an attack on the workers at Bus Éireann, however. It is attack on all workers, whether they be in the public or the private sector, and it is the thin end of the wedge for privatisation. The company must and will be defeated and strike action, including a sympathetic strike, is the right and only response to this vicious attack on workers by the company.
Deputy Healy raised the issue of Delays with Needs Assessments for Children in Tipperary South on 31 January 2017 in the Dáil.
Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group): The Disability Act 2005 provides for the assessment of health and education needs of persons with disability and provides for services to meet those needs. Section 9(5) of the Act also provides that the executive shall cause an assessment of applicants to be commenced within three months of the date of receipt of the application. The background information and supporting documentation refers to the need for services to be provided early in life to ameliorate a disability. They set out the procedure for the application for the assessment of needs. It states that the Act provides that the assessments must be started within three months of the application and also provides that the HSE must complete the assessment within three months. That is a legal requirement of the HSE as set out in the Act. Unfortunately, that is not the situation that pertains in south Tipperary and the legal entitlement is being breached. Children are not being assessed within the three-month period. There are huge delays in the assessment of needs of children. The service is broken and we need an immediate solution. The current situation for children in terms of the assessment of needs in south Tipperary is totally unacceptable.
A considerable number of parents have contacted me on the matter. I will give some indication of the difficulties and delays that arise. A parent whose child was due to start an assessment on 19 January was told recently the assessment would not commence until April 2019, in two years’ time. That is simply not good enough. The child is now over three years of age and will be more than five years old in two years’ time. As we all know, early intervention is crucial to ensure children with disabilities are properly looked after and have services provided to them.
Where an assessment of needs has not been completed, there are consequent delays in the provision of other services, for example, resource teaching, special needs assistants, speech therapy and a range of services children with special needs require to ameliorate their position. I urge the Minister of State to take steps to ensure the situation in south Tipperary is addressed and that additional staff are made available to the service there as a priority to ensure the legal entitlement of children to an assessment within a three-month period is fulfilled.
Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael): I am pleased to have the opportunity to update Deputy Healy and the House on the progress under way in developing services for children with disabilities and the current position on waiting times for assessment of needs in particular with regard to the disability services in south Tipperary.
Under the Disability Act 2005, a child can request an assessment of need. The HSE recognises that it faces significant challenges in respect of meeting the statutory timeframes which apply to the assessment of need process. The number of applications for assessment under the Act has increased each year since the Act was introduced. More than 6,000 applications were received countrywide in 2016. However, as of 31 December 2016, 100% of applications for south Tipperary, had commenced within the statutory timeframe. At 31 December, there were a total of 42 applications overdue for completion with 14 of these overdue by less than one month and 32 overdue by less than three months. In some individual assessments, it is more challenging to adhere to the statutory timelines, for example. Where a psychology assessment is required, this may necessitate a number of visits over a prolonged period of time. This would be true for instance regarding borderline cases on the autism spectrum.
The Disability Act 2005 makes allowances for these exceptional circumstances in individual assessments as regards the timeline for completion of assessments. In south Tipperary, it is acknowledged that there is currently a deficit in psychology services, a function which is essential for the completion of the assessment of need report. However, recruitment is under way to fill an additional post for a senior psychology post for the early intervention team. I know the Deputy will welcome this news. Interviews are to be held in February. The current Programme for a Partnership Government commits this Government to improving services and increasing supports for people with disabilities, particularly for early assessment and intervention for children with special needs.
The HSE has recognised that early intervention services and services for school aged children with disabilities need to be improved and organised more effectively. To this end, a major reconfiguration of therapy resources for children with disabilities aged up to 18 years is well under way. This involves bringing staff from different service providers together into network teams and is called the national programme on progressing disability services for children and young people, nought to 18 years. Since 2014, the roll out of the national programme on progressing disability services for children and young people, nought to 18 years, has entailed targeted investment of €14 million and the provision of 275 additional therapy staff to increase services for children with all disabilities.
I take this opportunity to refer to the situation arising from the assessment of needs at national level. There is a significant delay in respect of complaints with over 1,000 complaints still to be dealt with. I understand that there is only one individual in the appeals office nationally with no full-time administrative support staff. This situation is also unmanageable and needs to be addressed urgently by the Department and the HSE. I welcome the Minister of State’s response with regard to south Tipperary and hope interviews will be held and that the job will be filled shortly. If there is any delay, I ask that an effort be made to ensure that the post is filled on a temporary basis.
Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael): Clearly, I regret, as does the HSE, the difficulties some families experience in accessing the assessment of needs service. The HSE has confirmed that it is working to reduce waiting times and address the issues arising for all children and their families through a number of measures. The HSE is pursuing the filling of vacant posts and is highlighting the need for additional disability and psychology positions. It has produced an analysis of service demand and resource requirements and the Department will consider this as appropriate.
Other measures the HSE has taken with regard to assessment of need waiting lists in south Tipperary include validating the list in operation with a focus on those waiting the longest. The HSE has also outsourced limited services for children to reduce waiting times. In respect of the Deputy’s final point about the appeals office, I do not have information about that but I will certainly make inquiries and come back to him on that.
