Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

When working as a full-time GP, I had between 12,000 and 15,000 consultations with patients every year, just like any other GP across the country. When I was on call, for example, going out at 12 midnight to see a sick child, admitting someone to hospital, ringing a local accident and emergency department or consultant, or chatting with an ambulance crew outside a patient's house, no one thought that patients should bow or scrape before us. We were doing what we were paid to do, and it was our duty and privilege to help people in that way.

If we are in Government after the next general election, it will be our job to look after the health services. Although people in this House do not refer to it directly, those working in the health services know what a good job they are doing. However, they are disgusted at the way in which the Government has used their good work and serious commitment to the health services to cover up its gross inadequacies and failures. The Minister of State is part of a Government that has been making an absolute mess of things, and that is among the reasons that Fine Gael and Labour issued a joint policy paper on a patient safety authority.

Patients lack an independent authority to protect them. An authority would last a great deal longer than the Minister of State or I and allow patients to feel that someone was looking after their interests. It would contradict the notion that every patient across the country must bow and scrape to Fianna Fáil for the great privilege that it has accorded them through providing a health service. That is the sort of disgusting arrogance creeping into the Government, which is responsible for what is going wrong with the health services and for addressing what is going wrong.

At a time when the consultants' contract has not yet been negotiated and the Minister is going around playing spin-doctors with patients' welfare, why does the Taoiseach or the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, not take control of those talks? Why does the Taoiseach, who does not know whether he is for or against the consultants and nurses, not take them in hand? He could show that great commitment to labour relations of former years, chair the talks himself, and secure a resolution.

On the fifth floor of this building, Fianna Fáil backbenchers scream all night at the Taoiseach about how the poor nurses in their constituencies might not vote for them. They do not give a damn about nurses; they are worried about nurses' votes. Why does the Taoiseach not come out and say what he wants to give the nurses who keep the service alive? They are very much its backbone, and he should not embarrass them or others working in the health service by forcing them to go on strike before an election. He should show us what he can do for health service workers rather than drag matters out with press releases detailing what he might do. He has let patients down desperately.

Dr. Neary was suspended from practice in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1998, yet we have the most faulty Medical Practitioners Bill that might possibly be introduced to the House to stop such events recurring. The Bill might have to be withdrawn so the Government can issue a new version. There is no quality assurance to get bad doctors out of the system. The vast majority of doctors and nurses in the health care system are fantastic. They are dedicated, well trained and totally committed, but the Government has done nothing to remove bad doctors from the system or protect patients. That is why we need a strong, robust Medical Practitioners Act and why we need a patient safety authority rather than another commission, which is the Minister for Health and Children's solution. There is no clear commitment to protecting patients.

The Minister of State should suggest at next Tuesday's Cabinet meeting that the Taoiseach or the Minister for Health and Children chair the consultant contract talks. The Taoiseach should make a commitment regarding nurses rather than send them out on the picket line. He should make clear his intentions. When he is there talking to them, instead of paying the lip service that I have heard from so many Fianna Fáil backbenchers regarding their concern for primary care or elderly people at home, he should ask why children with disabilities and those elderly people who want to stay at home cannot get an occupational therapist. Such therapists are necessary to assess an older person's house or whether a child with a disability requires additional services. It is used to restrict services, and the Minister of State supports that.

We have many physiotherapists, but they are not being employed by the HSE to care for elderly people in the community. There is no commitment to such care in the sort of lip service that Fianna Fáil pays in this Chamber. The hospitals are a disgrace because they have no clear commitment to looking after them. MRSA is rampant, and what has the Government done to deal with it? It is absolutely everywhere and getting worse each year. Some 29,000 people are waiting to see a hospital consultant, while 40,000 have had procedures cancelled. The Minister, Deputy Harney, told the House the bare-faced lie that people must wait only three months.

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