Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I lost 20 seconds at the start of my contribution as a result of the carry-over from the previous slot. I will conclude, however, by referring to the passionate speech made by Deputy O'Dowd in which he referred to the private nursing home sector putting profit before health and safety. The Deputy has since left the meeting but I point out to the remaining Government members that the reason for that is that we have gone from having a nursing home sector that was majority publicly owned 35 years ago to one which is overwhelmingly privately owned. The reason for that change was that a policy of privatisation backed up by massive tax breaks was pursued by Governments led by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There was, therefore, more than a touch of hypocrisy in the bit of outrage we saw earlier.