James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----but rather of the progress made by the excellent men and women in our health service who work day in and day out. What they have achieved and the progress they have made is remarkable, despite the fiscal fiasco Fianna Fáil left us. They have managed, despite reductions in staff and budgets, to realise a 34% reduction in the number of our people who must wait for long periods on trolleys, a 99% reduction in the number of our citizens who wait longer than eight months for inpatient treatment and a 95% reduction in the number who have to wait longer than a year for an outpatient appointment - something Deputy Kelleher's Government, despite all the money it had and all the time it was in government, would not even measure because it did not want to know.

We will continue to modernise, reform and improve our health service, including the National Ambulance Service, always with the goal of improving outcomes for patients because that is our core mission.

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