Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Now we are to have a five-year plan for child care, a five-year plan for elderly care and a ten-year plan for transport.

We have travelled this road before. What about the two-year health plan to eliminate waiting lists? The only sense in which waiting lists have been eliminated is the Minister no longer publishes them. We were to have a three-year decentralisation programme. Now even the Government admits that by the end of next year, the third of those three years, it will only achieve 10% of the programme. We were to have a seven-year national development plan, but we now know that half the projects will not be delivered on time and they will come in at three times the cost.

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