Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

A new Minister would also send a clear message that times have changed and that performance and output must be achieved in the interests of the patient.

The Minister, Deputy Harney, has failed to achieve that vision set out in the Government's health strategy for which she is responsible and in which she speaks of "a health system that is there when you need it, that is fair and that you can trust".

She stated last night that she wanted to look every patient in the eye. She wants every woman and every man to know that she is a caring person, that she is delivering a service for them. I ask her to go and talk to the person who wrote this letter. This is a woman who, at the request of her doctor, received notification to attend for her mammogram on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 at 11.33 a.m. That woman is waiting for a mammogram requested by her general practitioner and she has been told to wait that length of time when she may well be a suspect for what the women in the midlands have. That is the Minister's incompetence. That is her failure. She might be in situ but she is not in charge.

I support this motion.

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