Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Minister admits that the tax take has doubled in the past seven years and that tax as a proportion of gross national product, GNP, has also increased. Do people ask him, in the same way as they ask me, what we get for all this extra money? Have we made an impact? For example, do they ask him about the trebling of spending in the health area which appears to have produced only a few hundred extra hospital beds and a decrease in accident and emergency services while there is chaos in the health service and fewer are eligible for medical cards than were seven years ago? Do people ask him why things went so wrong? Why does the Minister think there has been a preference for recruiting to administration and management tasks instead of to frontline services? This view has been supported by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his report on the health services. What changes does he believe are necessary if we are to get better value from spending on this scale given that these golden years will not last forever? Since we are not delivering, what changes does the Minister advocate making to obtain better delivery?

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