Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Yes. Does the Taoiseach see that a conflict has arisen in a number of areas between his programme for Government and the regulators and quangos his Government has tended to set up to avoid direct responsibility? They are at a remove from Cabinet Ministers and the Government. I will make a brief reference to what I mean to illustrate this. The programme for Government promised 3,000 extra beds in the public hospital system, but the chief of the HSE, which has been set up since, says we do not need that number. The Tánaiste does not seem to know whether we do.

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