Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

To answer Deputy Rabbitte's first point in regard to my colleague, Deputy Martin, my predecessor as Minister for Health and Children, a hospital information system was being rolled out in a number of hospitals in Cork, Tralee and elsewhere. The cost of that project was going to escalate to approximately €400 million and he put the brakes on it and refused to give any more money towards it at the start of 2004.

Regarding this particular project, as I said last week, it justified the idea of not having 11 different health boards with 253 members, which was what we had to deliver health services, and demonstrated the need for the Health Service Executive. It was long overdue. This is one example, among many others——

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