Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When 1 million health insurance policies were hiked, it was not the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, alone who did it; it was a Government that claimed it was hitting only “gold-plated policies”. This year’s funding crisis has at its core a decision taken by other Ministers to censor the HSE's annual plan by insisting that services be maintained, even where funding was being withdrawn. A system which had been delivering major improvements in services and doing so within budget has been undermined by a Government that will not even acknowledge the cutbacks it is imposing.

The announcement on Wednesday of introducing free GP cards for the over-70s, while, at the same time, removing full medical cards from the same age group just because they were slightly above the new income criteria that the Government introduced, was deeply cynical. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste have not announced any new direction in health policy. They have not announced the abandonment of the compulsory insurance system or made any credible commitment to protect services.

We also need a new direction in the education sector where cutbacks and ill-judged changes are causing real damage. In education the Labour Party did not just break its promises; it did the exact opposite of what it stated it would do.

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