Press Releases
Progressive Democrats reject Labour’s attack on National Treatment Purchase Fund
Fiona O’Malley TD accuses Labour's Liz McManus of ‘ice cold contempt for real reform’
Progressive Democrats TD for Dun Laoghaire, Fiona O’Malley TD, today hit back at the Labour Party for yet another attack on the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
Deputy O’Malley said, ‘Liz McManus’ latest, predictable attack on the National Treatment Purchase Fund is totally bankrupt. From the start, for ideological reasons, Labour has opposed the NTPF, even though it has meant 35,000 public patients have got the treatments they needed and have got fair access to the same hospitals as private patients.’
Deputy Liz McManus’s haughty dismissal of every reform in health can’t hide the fact that she has produced not one single idea or policy proposal of her own since the last election.
She wants us all to forget that, in 1997, when Ruairi Quinn was Finance Minister and Deputy McManus was a Minister of State, they provided a mere €10 million to tackle waiting lists. And the result?
She wants people to forget that the numbers on waiting lists rose in that year to 32,000. Public patients were left waiting for years without operations. They were left with no appointment dates. They had no access to private hospitals. They were treated like statistics, not people. 75 per cent of people waiting for heart operations waited for more than a year. No-one in Labour cared and no-one had any idea what to do, but put a paltry €10 million into the Waiting List Initiative.
This policy was heavily criticised by the Comptroller and Auditor General later. It’s hypocritical that Deputy McManus now pretends to be a champion of value for money, when no-one could tell what effect their paltry allocations to the old Waiting List Initiative ever had.
Asked if Labour would do away with the NTPF if they ever got into government, Deputy McManus predictably fudged, “We’d reform it”. No details, no plans, no ideas. And for all the huffing and puffing, no objection in principle to the NTPF, it seems.
This shows yet again the bankruptcy of Labour party on health: all sneers and jeers but not policies, no proposals, no reforms. Not even hot air, but ice-cold contempt for real reform and real work to improve services for patients.
ENDS