Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

That puts the buck back on the patient. It is difficult for the Taoiseach to appreciate the frustration, anger and anxiety of these patients who are waiting on these lists, especially if he is away canvassing on another job.

Four months in Cork, 12 months in both Tullamore and Galway are 18 months in Portlaoise are the times concerned for people who are on those waiting lists. What they want to hear from the doctor or from the consultant is that they are all right and that there is nothing wrong with them, or that at least they will have their test carried out and the truth of the findings of that test will be made known to them. That is what patients want to hear and patients want to find out that they will have that facility.

Ms Suzie Long, before she died, wrote:

I then came home, flicked on the tv and got into bed. The first ad on the tv was from the government telling people that bowel cancer can kill, but not if caught in time. If Bertie Ahern or Mary Harney or Michael McDowell were within reach I would have killed them. Literally. I'm not joking.

That young girl is dead because she did not get a colonoscopy in time. I am telling the Taoiseach that these are not phantom lists. These lists are real evidence of people, some of whom consultants have stated will die because they will not be seen on time.

If the Taoiseach was interested, or if the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, was sufficiently interested, instead of being a bystander she would see to it that the HSE receive instructions and directions from Government to implement Government policy. First, will the Taoiseach and the Minister direct the HSE that there be clear guidelines set out for who should be seen and who should not be seen? Second, will the Taoiseach direct the HSE to set a target time of six weeks for every person who needs a colonoscopy to be seen? Third, will he direct the HSE to use this very expensive equipment lying idle every weekend in every hospital to maximum capacity to reduce these waiting lists?

See this speech in context