Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I listened intently to the Tánaiste's reply to the points made by my colleagues last night and I was flabbergasted. When I was growing up in the 1960s my family had an old record player the needle of which often stuck on one spot so we heard the same old lines coming out. Eventually we had to lift the needle to get it over the rim. The Minister for Health and Children repeated the claptrap I have heard from this Government for the past eight years.

Can the Minister explain why the people of Longford and Westmeath have waited eight years for a decent hospital, as promised in 1997? During that time the Minister allowed at least €150 million be frittered away while the taxpayers of Longford and Westmeath paid their money and she did nothing about the hospital. The Minister is in no position to tell anybody here about hypocrisy. She turned up last April for a photo opportunity with her colleagues when the doors of the 12 bed paediatric unit were opened. As soon as she left the doors closed behind her and the staff are waiting to be appointed. Is that the way to run a health service?

This Government fails to give the people what they deserve, but the people are waiting in the long grass. We will not forget. I was in Longford and Westmeath recently where I met a nurse who asked me when the 12 bed unit would open. I said it should have opened by now. She hoped it would open in November or December because she works in the Coombe Women's Hospital but would like to work 20 miles from her home, in Mullingar where she is badly needed.

Does the Minister think the electorate I represent are fools? Is it not a sad day when a hospital such as Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin, where a close relative of mine is a patient, needs additional funding? The Minister should not say the hospital does not need funding. Why are Niall Quinn and popular musicians donating money to it?

It would shame anybody but most of all it is to the Minister's shame that her ideology is to privatise the health service. She wants to look after the interests of the property developer instead of the public provision of hospital services. This is an ideological argument in which the Minister is very much to the right.

It is a scandal. The Minister should first give €100 million to Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin, an excellent facility with excellent nurses. I know the unbelievable work they did to save a young relative of mine. I know too, as a barrister, as should the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Brian Lenihan, that people who are handicapped as a result of accidents may have to wait to be admitted to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. That is not good enough. It too deserves €100 million.

That is how I would have spent the €200 million the Minister will waste on PPARS. Surely people can write with biros or whatever to ensure staff receive their wages? None of them will receive €100,000 or €1 million more than they should. The manual system always got the payroll right. The Minister should put that money into services that are needed for children and for those who are severely disabled or handicapped as a result of car or other accidents.

I would be willing to pay another cent or two in tax, a suggestion the Minister does not like to hear, to ensure the services are provided for everyone belonging to me and the people of this country, young and old. Why should nurses working in Mullingar have to deal with 135% and 140% over capacity of patients at Christmas? The Minister told Deputy Paul McGrath that the hospital is going to tender in March 2006. It will have taken 11 years by the time it is open. One third of the hospital was provided in 1997 — a lovely building destroyed now by bird droppings.

Does the Minister know what the concept of value for money means? It is value for money if it is for the private investor. There is no reference to value for money when the service is for ordinary people who pay their taxes and do not leave the country to dodge them. They are the people who count. The next election will focus on ideology and putting people's well-being before the profits and economics of the right wing classes.

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