James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The 2007 programme for Government stated that the Government would implement "plans for co-located facilities because this represents the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that public capacity is both increased and ring-fenced". The Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, announced her co-location plan on 14 July 2005. Four years on, not a single one of the 1,000 beds which were promised is available. In fact, not a single brick has been laid or a sod turned in any co-located hospital. So much for speed and efficiency.

In 2007, the programme for Government promised to develop a freely available and personalised national programme to provide for the prevention and early detection of illness for men and women, that the expert group would be established in 2007 and report by 2008. The expert group still has not been established. On mental health, it was stated the Government would invest in and fully implement the vision for change strategy and provide further additional funding to support recovery of mental health service provision. Nothing has happened.

It comes down to a strong message. I must remark on the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen. He spoke about his Government in the context of its courage in making tough decisions, words that might impress if the reality matched them, but the reality today is the decisions taken were tough on the people, particularly the vulnerable, but not tough on the Government itself or tough on reforming the clearly dysfunctional systems of education, economic regulation or our health service, to mention but three areas.

This is the Government that has displayed its courage by spending billions of taxpayers money to defend a developers' bank, while at the same time refusing to spend a few million euro on other measures, which deprived our young girls of protection against cancer, children with learning disabilities of their special classes and our terminally ill of a medical card - they must now queue for the right to die in a hospice.

Ministers have come out in unison to say they are listening to the people. They may be listening, but they are not hearing what people say. The Irish people have had enough of the sort of courage and toughness displayed by this Government. Fine Gael wants to bring a new Government to this Republic which will have at its heart transparency, accountability and fairness across all State activity-----

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