Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I have a great deal of sympathy for the Minister of State, who has probably been handed a script to read out, but her reply was unsatisfactory. She did not mention that the patient was on a trolley for five days. Instead, she stated: "In all, the patient spent five days in the emergency department" and the Minister "does not consider it acceptable that a patient should wait five days". Today is Tuesday. The Minister of State should imagine being restricted to a trolley, even in the best of health, until Sunday. Her reply is not worth the paper on which it is written. Will there be an inquiry? Were we advised of measures that will be put in place to discover how this situation occurred?

In its five point plan the Fine Gael Party pledged to reform the health service and cut waiting lists, but it is prepared to perpetuate the mess initiated by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. Today there are 344 patients on trolleys across this State and 28 of these are in Drogheda. The waiting list for hospital treatment has increased by 40% since the start of this year.

The health service is not being properly funded. That is obvious to the professionals - I met with the management briefly today - and to the patients. The Government says the money is not there but that is not true. Politics is about choice and everybody present in this Chamber knows that. The Government is making political choices. A political choice was made to read a script such as the one the Minister of State read. It contains a big lie in that it omits the fact that this person was on a trolley. A political choice will be made on 2 November to give €700 million of the people's money to unguaranteed banks. The Government is making a political choice in paying off unguaranteed bondholders instead of the fixing the health service. That is not acceptable and I do not mean this personally in terms of the Minister of State, but tá a lán rudaí mícheart leis na rudaí anseo. There are many things wrong but this is one issue and one problem which can be fixed.

There is a hospital up the road from Drogheda that has a 23-bed ward which is closed. Across that region there are 62 patients, mostly elderly people, who have already been medically discharged but have nowhere to go because of the mess in regard to the fair deal scheme.

This matter needs to be resolved. With all the fine rhetoric that sometimes flows about citizens' rights, the republic and so on, when it comes down to it if one is lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor and contracts TB, that is how one measures one's republic.

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