Where is Fianna Fáil’s health policy? – Doherty

Fine Gael Meath East TD and member of the Oireachtas Health Committee, Regina Doherty, has today (Wednesday) said Fianna Fail’s attacks on the Government’s White Paper on Universal Health Insurance (UHI) exposes the Party’s complete lack of a policy on health.

“After years of outsourcing health policy to the PDs, Fianna Fáil went into the last General Election with a manifesto that didn’t even have a health section.

“Not much has changed in the meantime. In April 2013, Micheál Martin published a policy guide promising a detailed document on how the health system should work at a later stage. That detailed document still hasn’t materialised.

“Any claim that Fianna Fáil has published a document on health needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The Party published a paper authored by Brian Turner, with the following disclaimer: ‘The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the School of Economics, University College Cork or Fianna Fáil.‘

“Despite the fact that Micheál Martin is a former Minister for Health, his Party seems incapable of coming up with any health policies. This perhaps isn’t surprising given his disastrous stewardship of the health service and his establishment of the HSE. A couple of weeks ago, the HSE Chief Executive Tony O’Brien described the way in which the HSE was set up in 2004 as being ‘like a high speed car crash’. Yet Fianna Fáil wants to stick with this failed system rather than making radical changes.

“No wonder all FF do is criticise. The Party doesn’t have the credibility, or the policies, to say anything else on health.”

ENDS