Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

It is interesting that the Government is trying to suggest the reason Deputy Harney must remain Minister for Health and Children is nobody else can take up the job. The obvious answer to this is that many of us on this side of the House would be willing to take up the challenge but the excuse that no one feels he or she could do better than the incumbent also shows the bankruptcy on the Government benches.

Let us examine the record on hospital beds, medical cards, the consultant contract, community nursing beds, hygiene standards and accountability. All of these things were promised but none were delivered and this Minister has actually made matters worse. The feather-bedding of private hospitals, the ending of local democracy and the promotion of inequality are all part of her record.

In November 2004, the Minister, Deputy Harney, bulldozed the Bill that set up the Health Service Executive through this House. She promised high quality patient care and modern, effective management. I argued at the time that this hijacking of democracy was the latest in a comedy of errors that had every likelihood of becoming a catalogue of disasters. I wish I had been wrong but we now have that catalogue of disasters with patients suffering needlessly and dying prematurely. One such patient was Susie Long, a brave mother who died almost three years after the HSE was set up. If the person with ministerial power and authority does not accept responsibility for the botched state of our cancer services, which led to the death of Susie Long, then who will?

The Minister claimed she would deliver improved, integrated, high-quality care and she must take the blame for not doing so. She said last night that she does not accept failure but such hubris only sends out the message that whatever one does, whoever one is, one can duck the flack and keep one's job. Deputy Martin, when he was Minister for Health and Children, cost the State millions when he did not read a brief but he ducked responsibility and got another job. The Minister, Deputy Harney, is presiding over a catalogue of disasters and cannot get information from the Frankenstein she created called the HSE. If she does not accept responsibility for these failures why should anyone working inside or outside the health service do so? Why do Ministers exist if not to take responsibility for what they do and fail to do?

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