James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Unlike the bombast opposite, I take responsibility. I made it my business to travel around the majority of hospitals during the latter weeks of February to ensure that contingency plans were in place and that a safe service could be continued. I am happy to report that during the course of my tour, front line personnel engaged in a major way with the clinical programmes and the SDU in changing their practices. I commend them in this regard. When I met 120 personnel last Friday, I told them that were they to be called anything, it would be "the Impossibles". They make the impossible possible despite all of the challenges they face. More work needs to be done because additional reforms are necessary to fix our health service. It was dysfunctional and grossly unfair and must be turned into a fair and equitable system that delivers for patients on time. It must be somewhere that patients can feel safe and of which everyone working in it can feel proud. This is the Government's goal and it will be done.

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