James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with my colleague Deputy Varadkar. We will debunk some of the rewriting of history that the Minister has just done before the House.

First I must comment on the Taoiseach himself - through the Chair, of course. He is not leading but rather loitering with intent. His intent is to continue on as he has done for the past two and a half years, presiding over a worsening economic mess, a health service that is in meltdown, and an education system that is taking special needs assistants away from children, thus preventing them from exploiting their full potential, and increasing class sizes. I will not go into the other ministries. I see before me a person who will now be in charge of education but who does not know the difference between Darwin and Einstein, and I wonder where we are going.

The Taoiseach's name begins with "C", and there are three words beginning with "C" which could describe today's reshuffle. I leave it to Members to decide: is what the Taoiseach has done courageous, cautious or cowardly? Where is the public service reform? Nowhere. Bankers screw up, regulators fall asleep at the wheel, public servants preside over large amounts of waste - as in FÁS and elsewhere - and they all get a big golden handshake to go on with, while the taxpayer pays the bill. That is the idea of public service reform here.

I refer to the Minister in whom the Taoiseach has so much faith that he has re-appointed her in the same position. I met the family of Daniel McAnaspie outside the House; I do not know whether the Minister met them. This is a young man who was in HSE care and who has been missing for four weeks. The Garda believes, I am told by his family, that he may have come to some serious harm, but nobody in the HSE has gone to the trouble of looking for him or checking areas in which his body might be found - although I hope it has not gone that far. He is among many who have gone missing and died in HSE care. There are other issues with child care, including the lack of proper in-patient facilities for those with psychiatric problems. We do not even have an inspectorate for adults or children with disabilities who are in care.

The Minister talked about her reforms and mentioned cancer services. However, after two years of much talk about reform of cancer services, what she has achieved is an improvement in only one area - that of breast cancer services. Even so, there is no service north of a line between Galway and Dublin, although there are several such locations in Dublin. The wonderful reform does not bear up to examination.

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