Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Of course the Minister resorts to silly nonsense when he no longer has any cogent argument. Nobody ever suggested a wealth tax was the panacea for all our economic woes and financial ills; far from it. It is part of a package of measures which we have consistently commended to a series of Governments. It is well-documented and well-costed, not by Sinn Féin but by the Department of Finance. Let there be no doubt about it, the facts and figures we present can be stood over and are sustainable. They are political choices and are clearly not the choice of the Minister.

He prefers to impose these measures and thereby heap further difficulties on people who are already overburdened. Those are the facts. I am absolutely committed not only to having the level of care provision meet the highest possible standard but also to ensuring capacity will be increased. Such an increase is not happening and all that is occurring is continual contraction. I instanced one example in this regard but I could cite more.

With this Bill, the Minister has created a compendium of measures with which he is pressing forward and in respect of which a guillotine will apply in the next 20 minutes. This is par for the course for Governments in the closing days of any particular Dáil session. We need not revisit the contributions of the Minister, when he was Opposition spokesperson on health, to remind ourselves of how he reacted when those in the previous Administration did exactly what he is doing now.

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