Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I had to check my calendar there to see whether we were, in fact, on 1 April. I was wondering were we listening to some April fool's joke, having been subjected to the previous contributions from Labour Deputies who seem to be inhabiting some planet very different to the rest of us. It is an insult that people would put up the model of the National Health Service in Britain, which is indeed the best model of public health care and is based on a taxation system where those who have the ability to pay pay through their taxation and those who need the service get it free at the point of access. The idea that the Government's proposal on universal health insurance has any relationship to that is quite simply farcical. Either the two Deputies who spoke before have no comprehension of that and do not understand what has been in front of us, or else they are engaged in a deliberate deceit. Either way, thankfully, the population at large are on to them and their ilk.

The reality is that this proposal is a substantial elimination of any notion of a public health service and it comes on top of the systematic undermining of that system which has taken place already. I do not blame Fine Gael Deputies for that. We know Fine Gael stands for privatisation and so on, and more power to them, but the other clowns going along with it is an entirely different matter, I have to say. There is no secret about-----

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