David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

It is extremely worrying when Ministers do not care and when they merely come before the House, go through the motions and refer to the millions spent here and the millions spent there. They never state that there is a problem, that they need to do better and that Ireland is not as good as other countries in certain respects.

Ireland lags far behind international best practice and standards in the area of stroke rehabilitation. I travelled to Germany last autumn, at my own expense, to view rehabilitation centres in that jurisdiction. I was absolutely blown away by the scale of those centres, the service provided and the level of treatment of which people could, almost instantaneously, avail. I was informed that a huge percentage of the people treated at the centres, stroke and acquired brain injury victims, would be able to return home and lead almost normal lives. The commitment people in Germany display in respect of this matter is staggering. The Minister and the Minister of State should travel there to see what is on offer. On the next occasion on which they come before the House, they should write their own speeches and not rely on others to do it for them. They should focus on the people who are suffering on a daily basis. They repeated the litany regarding the hundreds of millions and billions that is trotted out by Ministers at every opportunity. If so much money has been invested, why is the service so appalling? Why are older people who suffered strokes lying in hospital and nursing home beds this evening, staring up at the ceiling and praying to die? Why are young people obliged to wait months or, in some cases, years for rehabilitation, particularly when it is provided within hours or days in other European countries?

The Minister has been in power for ten years and has had unprecedented wealth at her disposal and she now has the audacity to insult the House and the nation by delivering an amateurish, back-slapping, disinterested contribution. It makes my blood boil.

The Minister did not refer to the Irish Heart Foundation report. Does she agree with the assertion in the report to the effect that stroke units are virtually non-existent? The Minister should have addressed matters of this nature in her contribution and should not have stated that hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money was spent on this and that. The Irish Heart Foundation report also states that only a tiny fraction of patients who might benefit from acute interventions such as thrombolosis are correctly assessed. It further states that acute rehabilitation is only available to one in four patients or is delayed beyond the point at which it is most effective. Is that true?

The report of the Irish Heart Foundation also states that the results are predictable and that too many people die from stroke because they cannot access optimal treatment sufficiently rapidly. People are dying. Does the Minister care? Is she aware of what is happening or is she insulated from what is happening in the real world?

The report further states that too many survivors are left with avoidable and unduly prolonged disability. The Minister referred to establishing review groups. Such a group was established in 2003 and a second one has now been set up to review its findings. What the hell is the Minister playing at? Ten or 12 years ago, the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, visited Cork and informed us that a rehabilitation centre was to be established there. However, this did not happen. Why was that the case? The Minister, Deputy Harney, did not provide information in that regard. We have asked this question time and again but we have not received an answer because Ministers do not care. The Government has been in power too long and its members are out of touch.

The Minister of State, Deputy Devins, failed to provide a timescale or targets in respect of the national strategy for the provision of rehabilitation services. All he provided were words and these mean nothing to people. That is absolutely not good enough.

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