Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The same Government has pushed ahead with its public private partnership strategy despite the findings of a previous Comptroller and Auditor General's report that showed schools built under private partnership strategy could have been built in the normal way by the State at a much lower cost to the Exchequer.

Another massive waste of money is on the way, perpetrated by the Minister for Health and Children. She wants to give away sites at public hospitals to the private health sector and subsidise the building of more private hospitals. The same Minister is now faced with the mess that is the PPARS computer system. I have been contacted by workers in the health system who confirmed all that has been said about this in the past few days.

When the PPARS system was initiated in 1999, workers at the coalface, including those working on health service payrolls, warned that it would not work. They are angry that they were not listened to, just as the Minister of State refuses to listen tonight. That is typical of the arrogance of the Government of which he is a member. The Minister of State and management swallowed the assurances given by highly paid consultants responsible for the system.

Health service workers speak with frustration about the junketeering of senior management since 1999. When we delve into the full details of this particular disgrace, information will emerge on the weeks and weekends spent in Sligo and elsewhere under the guise of getting the system up and running. However, here we are six years later and nothing is up and running.

In one HSE location in Dublin, Deloitte and Touche have two employees in situ and the consultancy firm is being paid €15,000 per month. I was contacted by one of my party colleagues, a former member of the North Western Health Board, who queried the amount of money being spent on PPARS by the health board. He was reassured that this was all necessary and above board and would improve efficiency. We now know that those assurances were wrong. With all that has been exposed, rather than heckle Members of the Opposition, this Government would do better to shut up and listen. Maybe it will learn.

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