Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The Government is out by almost €8 billion in its projections in terms of budgetary forecast. We will be boasting later today about how much money we have, yet there are parents at their wits end trying to find respite care or an assessment service for their children in these circumstances. The Taoiseach seems to think it is fine that the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, comes in here and tells us he has apologised to the psychiatrists. What about the parents? Did he apologise to them? The Taoiseach comes in here and says the Minister of State is doing the job to the best of his ability, but is that not the problem? The man may be eminently well suited to some other aspect of Government, but it is transparently the case that he has no feel for this area, that he does not understand it and does not empathise with it.

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