Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Where is the capital programme and where are the step-down beds? Where is the ten-point plan announced by the Tánaiste in terms of its efficacy in these circumstances? The Government parties have been in office for eight years but people are still expected to work in circumstances akin to Third World hospital care facilities. People in pain are kept overnight on trolleys in many hospitals while the Taoiseach continues to rhyme off statistics about what the Government has done in an economy that for more than 12 years has been expanding at a rate unprecedented in the history of this State.

See this speech in context