Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

On behalf of Sinn Féin Deputies, I support the Labour Party motion. Sinn Féin has long argued that comprehensive reform of the Dáil and Seanad is required, including among many other issues, shorter summer recesses. Each year the Government goes through the farce of sitting in the first week of July and returning in the last week of September in order that it cannot be said the Dáil did not meet for three months, even though it will be adjourned for all but two of the 12 weeks in question. This practice fools no one, nor will anyone be fooled by the proposal in the form of the amendment to the motion to debate the national development plan in a bogus Dáil week with no questions to the Taoiseach or Ministers.

The issues facing the country are extremely serious and need to be addressed effectively by the Government and Oireachtas. There has been an alarming rise in the number of people unemployed in the Twenty-six Counties. From January to May 2008, the number of unemployed people claiming benefit rose by almost 48,000, an increase of 31% and the biggest rise since records began in 1967. Unemployment stands at more than 200,000 for the first time in nearly a decade. This is 5.4% in the Twenty-six Counties and while the actual number unemployed is reaching the level of the 1980s, the working population is much greater so the percentage rate is lower. Nonetheless, this is a very serious situation and an indicator of fundamental flaws in the economy for which successive Governments since the mid-1990s bear full responsibility.

Some of those who advocated a "Yes" vote on the Lisbon treaty threatened voters with the prospect of widespread job losses. This threat was deeply insulting to those who lost their jobs over the past 12 months while the Government failed to take any action whatever to protect vulnerable workers and create alternative employment. If jobs continue to be lost in the months ahead, it will have nothing to do with how we voted in the referendum but will be the result of Government inaction.

A great proportion of the numbers joining the dole queue have come from the construction industry in which a slowdown was inevitable. Simply put, only so many houses can be built. However, the decline in construction has been made far worse by the reckless policies pursued by Fianna Fáil-led Governments which have placed far too much reliance on construction, in particular the private speculative housing market, for economic growth.

This was bad policy on two counts. First, it failed to meet housing needs equitably with tens of thousands of people left on local authority waiting lists for accommodation and low to middle income families unable to afford homes or else saddled with massive mortgages. Second, it was bad employment policy because it has left masses of young workers unprepared for employment in other sectors. There is now a large group of people in their late 20s and early 30s who left school a decade ago, went into relatively well paid jobs in construction during the boom years and have not known unemployment since. They are now experiencing the first shock of joblessness and many are heavily indebted thanks to the policy of easy credit. The real winners in the boom years were the biggest property speculators and developers and the rapacious financial institutions.

This requires a major change in Government policy. Workers must be retrained and local authorities financed to construct social and affordable housing, including the completion of the long promised housing redevelopments in Dublin city which have been scuppered by the pull-out of McNamara Construction from the ill advised public private partnership projects.

The new Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, recently announced the ending of the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway Races where the party's developer friends were wined and dined for the past decade. The interests of this group still dictate Government policy and the jobless figures show the long-term consequences of handing the economy over to them. It must be reclaimed.

We must also reclaim our public services from the policy of privatisation and cutbacks. New figures show the failure of the Government and HSE, one year on from the publication of the emergency department task force report, to reduce the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments in some of the largest hospitals in the State. Statistics provided to the Irish Medical News by the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine show numbers of patients on trolleys in accident and emergency departments are up to three times higher than this time last year. The task force was set up after the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated the position in accident and emergency departments was a national emergency.

We now find that five major hospitals — Beaumont Hospital, Sligo General Hospital, the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick, Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe and University College Hospital, Galway — are showing significant increases in numbers on trolleys in April 2008 as compared to the same month last year. Numbers trebled in Sligo and more than doubled in Beaumont and Galway.

Today we learn that another report to the board of the HSE shows that more than 40% of all patients in hospital accident and emergency departments who required admission had to wait longer than 12 hours, the official maximum period of waiting for a bed as set by the HSE and Minister for Health and Children. In the first four months of 2007, 4,799 patients had to wait for more than 12 hours in accident and emergency before admission to a hospital bed. In the same period this year, the figure rose to 6,159. Even more alarmingly, in 2007, 786 patients had to wait more than 24 hours but in 2008 the number has increased to 1,185.

These figures expose again the glaring need to provide additional hospital beds to address this crisis. We also need to see the delivery of the promised network of primary care centres and step-down facilities to free up hospital beds at both ends of the hospital system. The Government wants to centralise virtually all hospital services to the very hospitals which are currently under most pressure. Such a disastrous policy must be reversed.

When the HSE began to impose cuts last September, including its recruitment freeze, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and HSE chief, Professor Brendan Drumm, claimed the cuts would not affect patient care. They were proven wrong almost immediately and over the past eight months the effect of the cuts has been felt across the health services. Such is the concern at the extent of the cuts that the 28,000 members of IMPACT in the health services are on a work to rule and last week held protests at hospitals throughout the State. I commend the workers in IMPACT and other health service unions for their actions on behalf of patients and staff in our health services.

Essential improvements in services such as primary care, mental health services, care for older people and disability services are not taking place because of the HSE recruitment freeze. I highlighted in questions to the Minister recently just one area of great need which is not being properly met, namely, the shortage of speech and language therapists. While additional training places have been created, not enough posts have been put in place to meet the needs of children who require early intervention. We face the prospect of trained therapists having to emigrate to find work while children are denied the therapy they so desperately need.

The Government and HSE, even in their own book-keeping terms, are operating a false economy. The failure to develop primary care as promised leads to more dependence on our hard pressed hospital accident and emergency departments. The axing of the hospital in the home scheme leads to patients being admitted as inpatients, thus lengthening the waiting lists for beds. Inadequate services for older people and people with disabilities in their own homes leads to more people than necessary being admitted to residential care at much greater cost.

Increased fuel and energy prices are having profound and damaging knock-on effects throughout the economy and add up to 10% to many people's weekly income. The fact the Government did not raise the fuel allowance in the previous budget means those failing to meet the price of fuel before the latest increases are now suffering hugely. What are the prospects for them as the year proceeds into the autumn and winter?

I support the call of my colleague, Deputy Arthur Morgan, for the Government to immediately help those living with fuel poverty by increasing the fuel allowance accordingly. There must be action to address the high cost of diesel and its devastating effect, especially on small businesses and farming and fishing communities. All we have had so far is a shrug of the shoulders from Ministers, which is not acceptable.

I say to the Government that cuts will be resisted. The Government did not receive a mandate in the 2007 general election to impose cuts in public services. On the contrary, it promised greatly enhanced services across the board. During the referendum it treated the people with arrogance. Frankly, the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, was a great participant in that exercise. The Government asked the people to trust it and the people showed that the Government betrayed that trust, as is clearly evidenced by their clear rejection of the Government's leadership.

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