Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Everything is in the past with this Government and everything else is in the future. When the Cabinet was reshuffled in September 2004 I thought we had a change of Government because people were running around stating that everything was going to change. There have been more pronouncements about what will happen in future than action taken in the past five years. That is playing politics with people's lives.

The Government has not proven its commitment to delivering what it is meant to. This issue concerns patient safety, competence assurance, looking after patients and training staff, be they nurses, physiotherapists, doctors, junior doctors or consultants. We are discussing these matters today, not the delivery of services or their future reorganisation. The Tánaiste has done nothing for these anyway. We are discussing the protection of the patient, and the Tánaiste's record on this has been abysmal. In the next eight or nine months the Government will publish the medical practitioners Bill, the Health Information and Quality Authority legislation and even a pharmacy Bill or a nurses Bill. Given the pace of change, I cannot believe that legislation will be enacted before the next general election. In 2005 the only health legislation brought forward was for the establishment of the HSE and two amendments. One concerned the registration of deeds, the other the illegal nursing home charges which had first to go to the Supreme Court. That is a poor return from the Department of Health and Children in terms of legislation.

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