Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach is probably correct in that he is on the run-in to being run out of office. When he visits hospitals, does he take the time to go down the corridors? We do not live in fantasy-land any more. Mr. Patrick Kinder, chairman of the taskforce dealing with Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, does not live in fantasy-land and said the women of the north east are exposed to serious risk because they cannot see an obstetrician for 20 weeks once pregnant. That is a scandal. The lady who wrote to me from her trolley in Mayo General Hospital is not fantasising either.

In the past fortnight, I have been in St. Vincent's, Cavan, Mayo General, Galway Regional, Nenagh and Limerick hospitals, and in a number of others. In every one, people who built this nation are lying on hospital beds and trolleys with their medical problems exposed for all to see. A general practitioner in Kildare stated recently that 35 weeks elapsed between a screening test and a hysterectomy and that, in his opinion as a physician, the woman in question was essentially killed as a result. In Tralee Hospital last week, the consultants told me quite clearly that people are dying because of the endless waiting list for scope analysis and endoscopies. This is simply not acceptable.

I agree that when people get through the system and are treated in hospital, their care can be fabulous, but it is a scandal that the Government has, for ten years, failed to manage competently the accident and emergency system, thus causing all these problems.

See this speech in context