Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Another amendment in my name which has been ruled out of order sought to insert a sunset clause. It proposed to bring to an end and at a specific date the objectionable and intolerable situation to which the Bill will give rise. I do not want such circumstances to start and certainly want them to end at the earliest possible date. The Minister has said that it is "scheduled" for January 2005. I am aware that various elements of promised legislation have been scheduled. We see it when the Government publishes its schedule of legislative intent for every parliamentary session and lauds it in the House. The reality is that there is no link between the two. One cannot say "snap" as one would do when playing a children's card game. They do not match and will not match in this instance. I wonder at what point in time the Minister will feel the CEOs have exhausted their usefulness. In the first instance, we have seen the devastation of hospital care over a whole range of services from primary care onwards. What devastation is promised now?

I support the amendments tabled by Deputies McManus and Cowley. We are looking at the last vestiges of health boards that have been abused by virtue of the Government's representative monopoly which was put in place to dictate policy. Rather than putting the interests of the respective communities first and having failed to recognise that diminution anywhere diminished us all, the Government played a parochial game; by putting the Minister first, it blocked real opposition and concerted campaigning to save critical services.

I have mixed feelings about the health boards, of which I have some knowledge. We all recognise that significant reform is necessary but this is not reform. Outright abolition is not the answer, it is only indicative of failure. I reject the Bill completely. For whatever modicum of rescue these amendments represent, I will support them.

See this speech in context