Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Government will know before next year that the increase of 7% or 14% in the health budget will not pay for the wage increases under the benchmarking process. It will not even meet inflation, and by God will we have inflation given that medical inflation is twice as high again. People protested about cancer services outside the Dáil a few weeks ago. People are waiting for hip operations, or heart operations. I spoke the other day to a 92 year old woman who has been waiting for 15 months for a cataract operation that takes six minutes.

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