Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has indicated that I have only two minutes in which to make my contribution. I might not be able to stop once I get going.

I compliment the Deputies who brought forward the motion. The Health Service Executive is a total disaster. We have heard so much from the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, about his intention to abolish it. Instead he has merely tinkered with the board. It is an out-of-control juggernaut, a train that must be derailed. I made this argument many times to the former Minister for Health, Mary Harney. We hear about all the positive developments under the HSE, but they are spoiled by the very nature of the beast that it is the system which is simply abominable.

I walked out of a meeting with representatives of the HSE in Tipperary last week. Having been one and a half hours late in arriving for the previous meeting, they were 40 minutes late on this occasion. They have no respect for the Minister, his Ministers of State, Deputies or anybody else. Many of the senior managers are self-serving and concerned only with career building and ascending the ladder. We saw this when the health boards were amalgamated and not one job was lost. The Minister should know the situation well as a former president of the Irish Medical Organisation, in which capacity he negotiated some of the great deals for doctors and consultants. They are the only ones in the system whose pay has not been cut. Patients are waiting on trolleys, ambulance services are being cut, care homes are being closed down and so on, yet we continue to ignore the elephant in the room - consultants' pay. We are told there will be greater productivity if salaries are not reduced. That is patent nonsense. The people concerned are very eminent in their own right, but they cannot be treated like sacred cows. Everybody must feel the pain. Senior consultants are using public beds to treat private patients. A fitter and so on must provide his or her own premises and facilities. Former Minister Barry Desmond tried to abolish this practice a number of years ago but failed. Things have gotten worse since. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, acquiesced to the consultants and now lacks the moral credibility to retract that to which he agreed.

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