Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The problem I have with the Minister's reply is I do not think he believes it. Nobody in government believes the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, no more than I on this side of the House. The reason I do not believe him is that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform have insisted on assisting him in compiling the Estimates. His credibility is already shattered on this side of the House, but even within the Cabinet the Taoiseach, by his own admission, has said he has to go and try to help the Minister to run the Department. The difficulty we have is that there are unidentified savings of €108 million that we are being asked to assume will not have an impact on services, but, clearly, they will have a detrimental impact on them. If one goes through the full health Estimates and the HSE service plan, they are just not sustainable from the get go. Clearly, they will not be capable of delivering basic services.

We have heard time and again about the issues with medical cards, discretionary medical cards, the cancellation of procedures and people waiting inordinate time just to see a consultant. The Minister is now saying that next year will be a challenging one; it will not be a challenging year for the Minister, Deputy James Reilly, but it will be massively challenging for the many hundreds of thousands who will need to access health services in 2014.

See this speech in context