Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Their expectations of my performance were obviously great. I am sure their expectations were not just of me personally, but are the same as those they would have of any ministerial office holder, including their own. Therefore, I invite them to take any one year period when their own Ministers were in office, between 1993 and 1997, and to show us any lasting reforms that led to improvements in health care from a patient's perspective.

Let us begin with Deputy Howlin, as Minister for Health in 1993. He got off to a very bad start, as Mr. Fergus Finlay reminded us in his book, Snakes and Ladders, on page 162——

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