Professor Damian McCormack:

There seems to be a notion that there will be a day when this is solved. A health system is an extremely complex system. Here, in this country, it evolved until the 1970s with a consultant contract, with a staff and with a religious input which was significant. There was an evolution, which was imperfect. Christ, people worked very hard back then and there were not these huge waiting lists. There were not 48,000 children waiting to be seen.

In my 20 years, from the former Minister, Mary Harney, as change-for-the-sake-of-change policy, I have seen the system which had already evolved become more and more chaotic. Every little change now is the butterfly wing that is just creating more chaos. Everything is in flux. Everything is chaotic.

Deputy Cullinane asks when will it be solved. We would need a day to go through the specifics from the privatisation of medical education so that children are paying up to €70,000 a year to do medicine. They cannot afford to look after children with disabilities. When they train, they are gone.

With the privatisation of post-graduate education, you can now buy a PhD. You can buy a master of surgery degree. You can buy it. You do not have to do research. It is ridiculous. This is what we are seeing - this fallacy of skill set - and real skill is diluted. There is a significant dilution of critical skill.