Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

When Deputy Howlin launched the health strategy, Deputy McManus told us it was "a great disappointment" that "simply does not do the business". She went on, predictably, to say that "It includes slavish concessions to private health care". That was on 4 May 1994. The same, transferable speech 12 years later. The Ministers may change, but Deputy McManus's words remain the same.

When Deputy Noonan became Minister for Health in 1997, he invested £10 million in the waiting list initiative and the numbers on the list went up from 27,000 to 32,000.

I am always happy to listen to constructive criticism and to suggestions from those who have suggestions to make. However, I am reluctant to take lectures from those who do not believe in collective Cabinet responsibility, who have no policy achievements, who are constantly carping and involved in negativity, who have never led, developed or implemented Government policy and who constantly make false claims.

Let us now deal with those false claims. Deputy McManus tells us the number of hospital beds, per head is lower now than it was five years ago. Five years ago there were 12,612 beds. Now there are 13,707 beds, which represents over 1000 additional beds in that five year period. She told us that 480 acute beds were closed because the INO said they were closed. This is not so, as shown by the HSE. She says that the policy on medical cards for terminally ill patients has changed but it is the same policy that was implemented 30 years ago when the late Mr. Brendan Corish was Minister for Health. The Deputy said that treatments for patients by the national treatment purchase fund were cancelled. That is not true.

See this speech in context