Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

What the Minister has just indicated he does not agree with is what he said himself on a previous occasion. I quote from a statement of May 2010:

More beds closed means more patients suffering needlessly on trolleys and more patients waiting at home in pain due to cancelled operations.

Who said that? The Minister said it when 33 beds were closed on a five-day ward in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

The Minister has played a game of double standards. He championed various positions as Opposition health spokesperson but since taking office he has regurgitated what the previous Minister said. He now employs exactly the same language in parliamentary questions. He promised to take up the issues of responsibility and accountability. The parliamentary replies he gives me and other Deputies when we raise matters with him are verbatim what the previous Minister, former Deputy Harney, used to give.

Will the Minister not recognise, as he has said previously, that we need to see the restoration of some of the beds that have been closed and which are contributing to a calamitous situation in hospitals and accident and emergency departments across the State?

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