Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Does the Taoiseach acknowledge that all expert opinion agrees that the greatest challenge in our health service is the two-tier system? Does the Government accept this is the cause of the fundamental inequality in our health service? Public patients are treated as second class citizens, languishing in the community, languishing in queues and waiting for access to hospitals. The Government's latter day response is the Harney plan to give tax incentives to private developers to build private hospitals on scarce public land. The two tier divide at the heart of inequality in the health service will be worsened by the plan to build super private clinics on scarce public land. Where did the Minister for Health and Children get the mandate for this gearshift towards medicine for profit? It was not included in the manifesto or in An Agreed Programme for Government. It is a reversal of the health strategy published by the two Government parties.

Have contracts been prepared and will they be signed on the eve of the election to hand over public sites to private developers and investors to make profit from health, which is a community service and not a commodity? Is it the intention of the Government to sign such contracts in advance of the general election?

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