Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

If it is such a short Bill, why is it taking such a long time to emerge? It has nothing to do with the provision of 30,000 traditional medical cards. What is the point in repeating statistics? More than 8,000 fewer people have medical cards and there is no sign of the Tánaiste changing that.

How can the Taoiseach say this Minister is performing? She lost the chief executive of the Health Service Executive and she has presided over the robbing of people in nursing homes. She was not present last night when 1,500 people attended a protest demonstration about the condition of Wexford General Hospital nor was she present last week when 795 people met under the disability banner to protest at the useless nature of the Disability Bill. Her predecessor, Deputy Martin, may have done nothing except commission consultancy reports but she is going backwards. No chief executive has been appointed, no "yellow pack" medical cards have emerged while 30,000 medical cards that were promised have not been delivered and cards have been taken from more than 8,000 people.

The accident and emergency service is in crisis but the Minister did not forget to increase the charge for this service by €10 or increase the drugs refund threshold or increase bed charges by €10 from 1 January but she forgot to deliver medical cards, negotiate with the doctors and to prevent the loss of the chief executive of the health service.

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