Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I am not prepared to consider a report that makes blatant errors about the health service. As I have already said, the report states a general practitioner service does not exist. The survey asked whether a patient can have a same day service from their family doctor. To this the survey stated in Ireland it is a blanket "no". That is wrong. We have a GP service that will see patients on a same-day basis.

I have given the facts from people working in Irish hospitals and not those from an academic study in Sweden. While patients have said they are happy with services and hospitals, they are not with accident and emergency services. We have addressed this issue and invested significant resources in resolving it. Let us not take from the success in reducing waiting times for operations, which had dramatically fallen in 2002 from what they were in 1997.

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