Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Outside consultants and PR cost €17 million last year. In her contribution last night, the Minister admitted that we are spending too much on advisers and outside consultants. On the growth of bureaucracy in the Health Service Executive, HSE, there were six grade eight senior management positions in 2000. Now there are more than 700. Despite all of that administration, there is at least €160 million in unpaid bills to hospitals. Advisers to Government last year cost €6.2 million. Some of that expenditure was transferred into the Taoiseach's Department from the Minister for Health and Children's budget. There is no evidence of any efficiency being created by Government in the HSE.

Let me return to the point I made at the outset, children from all over the country have to visit Crumlin hospital when they have a major problem. I spoke to a mother in the hospital recently who was sleeping in a room for three months with her head under the sink while her child with cancer was receiving treatment. The Taoiseach is aware that doctors and nurses work under the most pressurised conditions in that hospital to deliver what they know they can do best, namely, the sensitive treatment of major operations for young children. What happened in the House last night amounts to an outrageous attack on the nurses and doctors in Crumlin by the Minister for Health and Children.

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