Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

He went on to say that the plan to build private hospitals has more to do with suiting the construction industry than suiting the needs of the patient. He said the Minister and the HSE are in cloud cuckoo land if they believe that patients are not suffering as a result of the Government's health policies. He also said the Minister for Health and Children would have resigned or been sacked from her position if she was in any other country.

In this morning's Irish Examiner, Professor Ray Kinsella argues that responsibility rests squarely with the Government and that the policies now being pursued, whatever about the Ministers who are pursuing them, were rejected by the electorate in June. Professor Niall Higgins, who drew up the cancer strategy, has described what happened in the hospital in Portlaoise as "a systems failure", something the Taoiseach said yesterday it was not and which he repeated again here this morning.

These people are respected experts in the field of medicine and health economics. They are not Opposition politicians nor leaders of political parties. They do not have a political axe to grind.

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