Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment to the motion. I ask Members to cast their minds back to the health committee a number of years ago when we discussed the Travers report when a certain Minister was asked what he knew or who was responsible and his line of response was "I had no responsibility; I was not responsible." That was Deputy

Micheál Martin, the then Minister for Health. Tonight we contrast that response with a Minister, in whom I have confidence, who has commenced the process of report and who is delivering a patient-centred and a patient-first health system.

The motion before us is a cynical political ploy by a party bankrupt and bereft of ideas and it ill behoves its members to come in here on speak on this after 14 years in government when they gleefully abandoned the Department of Health. They rubbed their hands and left the former Minister, Mary Harney, in there. They would not even take it on. They refused to go in there.

This motion, at its core, is about how we can bring reform to our political system and to our health system. Deputy Martin promised an end to the Punch and Judy politics but he has not stayed true to that line - he has abandoned it. His party abandoned it for the last 18 months and it abandoned it during the 14 years it was in government. The Galway tent and the friends act is over. There is a new politics.

This Minister will drive reform, and he will do so with the people who work diligently in our health service.

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