Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

We are not giving the Minister full credit for some of his achievements. In the past 24 hours we have witnessed a miracle comparable to the miracle of the loaves and the fishes or the conversion of St. Paul. In the space of four hours the Minister has miraculously cured 4,000 people and removed them from the waiting lists. He could not do that for the past two years so I congratulate him. I give him full marks for spin and presentation. I remind him of the Cabinet meeting last week when this aide-mémoire was prepared. It should have been prepared by senior civil servants in the Department unless they were assisted. I suspect they did their job and produced what was required. It happened about the same time that word broke that €50 million had been squandered on little machines whose buttons people could press. This had no approval from the House. There was much panic at that stage. The Government decided to do something to deflect attention from the real issues.

I do not know the terms of reference for the report the Minister received. He has successfully massaged the figures. He stated that 98% of those who were treated under the national treatment purchase fund expressed satisfaction. What has that got to do with the waiting list? Surely he did not expect them to say that the treatment was awful. Did he ask the other 2% what concerned them?

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