Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The difficulty is that the Taoiseach is out of touch. He probably genuinely believes what he is asserting. However, he is completely out of touch with what is happening on the ground and in the wards. He should know better than most that 3,000 beds were taken out of the system in 1987-89 by his predecessor, Charles Haughey. How can he make an argument to me about the population increasing since then, people living longer etc., while not acknowledging that the nub of the problem is that those 3,000 beds were taken out of the system in 1989? He seemed to acknowledge it in the Ballymascanlon strategy when the previous Minister for Health and Children pledged the restoration of those beds and a €7.7 billion programme. That was scrapped as soon as the Taoiseach appointed his new Minister for Health and Children. I cannot figure out whether the view is that we do not need any beds. That is what I appear to be hearing from Professor Drumm, who seems to be making policy as well as being responsible operationally. The Tánaiste seems to concur with that except that she will provide tax incentives for investors to build beds on the campuses of public hospitals.

What is the net Government position on the critical question of bed capacity? How can one deal with a population that has increased by more than 500,000, where people are living longer, medicine has become more advanced, and where we have fewer beds? Is that not the net issue? What is the response to that? Will the Taoiseach say what exactly is in this national emergency plan that is different? When the Tánaiste says that she is going to target resources at the HSE for improvements to be made, does that mean there will be a Supplementary Estimate for health? How much money exactly will be targeted for the elimination of the accident and emergency crisis? What in particular is the Tánaiste offering that is different from what she offered in November 2004?

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