Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach's answer is a total red herring. First, how does one know a case is urgent until one carries out the test? This woman was looking for a test to be carried out to establish her condition. To suggest there can be an urgent and non-urgent list, as if GPs, to whom patients present in the first place, can, without the benefit of the diagnostic tests, make such judgments in advance, is absolutely absurd. If it is suspected that somebody has cancer, to the extent that they need a test for the disease, that is pretty urgent and they should not have to wait seven months for that test.

There is a problem in the way the Taoiseach looks at the health service. He looks at it from a completely different perspective from the people who experience it. He looks at the health service from the perspective of reports, advice, the HSE and budgets, etc, but the people who have to use the health service see it from the other end. They see it from a plastic chair in a waiting room. From that point of view they are seeing a service which they expect to receive and are not getting. I accept that the Government is spending more than €14 billion per year on the health service and that 120,000 people are employed in it. However, with a population of slightly more than 4 million, it must be possible to organise the service so as to avoid the continuing problems we experience day in and day out.

The tragic case of Ms Susie Long is not a lone one. People tell us every day of their experiences waiting for procedures and tests. The issue, which after ten years in office the Taoiseach has not addressed, is the provision of a health service to which everyone has access, regardless of ability to pay, possession of insurance or appearance on one list or another. Anyone who needs a service should be able to access it reasonably quickly. No one should have to face the awful circumstances endured by Ms Susie Long and eventually expire.

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