Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The machine in question was 15 years old. The normal period for a mammography machine would be in excess of 11 years and this machine had been tested on an annual basis. I am not saying that better equipment is not needed, but that is not the point. As I said earlier, it was the same mammograms that were examined by two different teams. It was the same mammograms and had nothing to do with the equipment. The fact is that one person reading a mammogram decided one issue and another person decided another issue, so that is not about the equipment. In any case, the consultant will deal with it.

On the political point — it is a political point — as to whether I accept responsibility for the 120,000 people who work every day in the health service, I expect that when this House votes €15 billion to those staff, when we resource our health service probably as strongly as anywhere in the modern world, when we provide the facilities as best we can — we have improved facilities enormously with the increase from €3 billion to €15 billion in a short period of time — and when we increase staff by 30,000, I expect the staff to be doing their best, as everyone else is in society.

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