Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Caithfidh mé a rá go sílim gur thuig an Taoiseach go breá an méid a dúirt mé i nGaeilge. Tá sé ag magadh fúm, ach sin scéal eile. It is difficult to know which Taoiseach to believe. Is it the Taoiseach who said on RTE radio on Sunday that the transition teams are in place or the one who told us yesterday that they are not in place? These are the transition teams to deal with this crisis, but listening to what the Taoiseach has just said, one would think there was no crisis. We will lose 500 staff in mental health services. Will they be replaced? We decry all the time the fact that mental health is the Cinderella of our health services. Does the Taoiseach not accept that the loss of all these senior experienced staff, the embargo, the closure of hospital beds and the continuing gaps in emergency departments are creating a perfect storm in our health services? The reality is that there is no dynamic plan to manage that, and this is bedded in the Taoiseach's austerity policy. I will come back to that issue.

See this speech in context