DUBLIN HOSPITAL BOARD BILL (No. 389.) (Hansard, 26 August 1889)

§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. Jackson)

I desire to move that the Order for this Bill be discharged and the Bill withdrawn. I do this with extreme regret, because I believe the effect of the Bill would have been to have made a better appropriation of the Parliamentary Votes than the appropriation at present in force, and I believe it would have been much more 571 effective for its purpose. But I find opposition has been got up in different parts of the House, and I see no hope of passing the Bill this Session. I hope, however, before next Session we may get at the real facts of the case, and be able early in the Session to introduce a Bill that will meet with general approval, because I feel, after the condemnation passed by various Commissions and various Committees, that Parliament can hardly be justified in continuing in its present form and appropriating in its present manner the sum voted by Parliament.

§ MR. SEXTON

I deeply regret that no Bill on the subject is to pass this year, though I cannot say I much regret the withdrawal of the present Bill. I wish, in a word or two, to offer a few suggestions which may be useful to the Government. I notice the Government in the Bill altered the constitution of the Board proposed by the Royal Commission, and I would not go further into that than to say I think the nearer they kept to the recommendation of the Royal Commission the more likely the Board would be to give satisfaction. It is arranged, I am told, that the Government would place at the disposal of the Hospitals Board a sum equal to the annual produce of the capital value of the votes now given, and I calculate that would be £11,200 a year. The Government have added to that a sum of £300 a year, but they have placed on the Board unlimited liability for compensation, not only for physicians and surgeons who might suffer loss, but in regard to others connected with the hospitals, and physicians and surgeons who might be dissatisfied with the compensation offered by the Board might come to the Treasury and make an appeal. I would not advise any body of gentlemen to undertake the responsibility under these irksome and humiliating conditions, and I think unless the Government see their way to allow the Dublin Board the annual produce of the capital vote for hospital purposes, the Bill will not give satisfaction. I notice that a sub-section provides that 572 an hospital that is not open to clinica instruction would not be entitled to get anything from the Hospital Board. Cork Street Hospital is not open to clinical instruction, so that this hospital would fall upon the local rates, and the Bill would become of dubious benefit. The Bill has not been carefully framed, and if the Government keep in view the suggestion I have made, they will be more likely to present a satisfactory measure.