Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

This obviously represents the new way for Ministers and Ministers of State to react to criticisms from the Opposition. The Minister of State has accused us of criticising those who work in the health services. During a recent private Members debate a similar comment was made by the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan. I made it clear then that we do not criticise those who work in the health services. For instance, as with the doctors, nurses and everybody else in the health service, when I did my 10,000 or 12,000 consultations each year as a GP, I did not see myself as implementing Government policy. I looked after patients. Every nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and cleaner within the hospital system sees himself or herself as doing a job to look after patients.

When we criticise the Government we do so on its total failure to provide enough acute beds in the hospital system to look after those same patients and to provide enough step-down beds to look after elderly patients within the public system. We criticise the Government for giving public land to developers and for sending premiums for private patients through the roof. We are talking about the Government's failure to give direction and leadership in dealing with MRSA. We do not criticise the people who work in the health service. If those who work in the health service behaved in the same manner as the Minister and Ministers of State responsible for it, the health service would collapse in the morning. Their hard work is keeping it together.

The Minister of State should withdraw the stupid remarks he has made about Members of the Opposition. We are criticising the Government's performance and not the performance of those who work in the health services. With 12 or 14 weeks to go to the general election it shows the Government's failure that it is fighting with the consultants, nurses and every allied health professional within the health service who are threatening to go on strike because of the Government's failure.

I read an article by Professor Drumm which clearly states that senior HSE management needs more training and is probably not up to the job it is doing. That is some admission two years after the establishment of the HSE. Those are the criticisms we make. It is extremely disingenuous of the Minister of State to try to suggest that the Opposition is attacking those who work in the health service. I know people working in the health services, probably better than the Minister of State does. They do not read those headlines in the newspapers as criticisms of them per se. They read those headlines as criticisms of the system and of the poor leadership they are getting not just from the Government but also from the HSE. This is a sign of that.

The Government has changed the nature of this legislation. Nobody trusts the Government. Everybody is afraid about the interpretation of something like the "need for the applicant to be maintained in a nursing home". The Minister, Deputy Harney, said everybody who needs an urgent colonoscopy, like in the case of Rosie, will be seen within two weeks. What is an urgent colonoscopy? The Minister of State does not know and I do not know even though I have been in medicine for 20 years. There is a need for the Minister of State to stick with what he is supposed to be doing and not throw out wild allegations.

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