Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister was on a different brief, but while the public is consumed with the crisis in Irish Water the Department of Health is failing to address the concerns being highlighted this evening. The Minister will have to up his game and start addressing this. He cannot just cruise into the next general election hoping he will not be held accountable for what is going on in the health service.

Like the Minister I am prone to googling. On Monday I googled "Mr. Leo Varadkar" and "Irish Water". Since the beginning of this month the Minister has made comments on Irish Water on 30 separate occasions. When I googled "Mr. Leo Varadkar" and "the fair deal scheme" it returned four results. The Minister is deliberately stoking up a distraction from the mess. I know it is not to do with having confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly. I am sure he is shaking in his boots tonight. The Minister clearly does not give a damn about the crisis in our nursing home system. He is more concerned about flagging up debate and sticking his nose into a debate and absenting himself from addressing the situation being highlighted.

I see the real distraction, which is the demise of the Minister's political party and the opportunity he has to take out the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, as leader. That is what is going on. That is why he is speaking about Irish Water. He certainly does not want to speak about health. He certainly does not want to speak about vulnerable old people who are carrying a burden because of the Minister's inactivity in addressing the spirit of the fair deal scheme.

With regard to Cabinet collective responsibility, the Minister denied the waiting lists published recently, for which he is responsible, exist. He denied they were stoked up and fiddled. He is sitting on a document which has a direction to cover up and "smeargle" waiting lists. He is camouflaging the disaster. That is what is going on. As Deputy Collins stated, we are meeting the consequences of the camouflage system.

I understand the Minister is a GP, which is an area that is suffering greatly. As a Deputy from rural Ireland I ask him to pay immediate attention to the crisis emerging with the exodus of GPs from the country. However, this pales into insignificance relative to the loss of our young nurses who have gone through a qualification system in Ireland at a cost to the Exchequer. Not that the Minister is responsible, because he was not at Cabinet the day they were given the yellow pack deal. This is why Irish nurses will not stay in the system and it is causing a crisis. They are voting with their feet and going to work in England, after the Exchequer has taken the liability and cost of training invaluable front-line staff.

This motion deals with a part of the health service about which the Minister has spoken only four times since the beginning of the month. However he has spoken about Irish Water 30 times. As the Minister is on his iPad he can qualify whether I am correct. It is probably a greater number now because my research was effective until Monday. I would say the Minister has spoken more times on Irish Water in the past 48 hours then he has about the fair deal scheme. That is how much he cares about elderly people. That is what is going on.

Originally the Minister and the Government committed to a review. The Minister is smirking, but I know he is not smirking at me. I know he has disdain for people like me, but I have a mandate to be here to say what I am saying, because I am saying it on behalf of people who are stuck with the liabilities he is ignoring. He can smirk all he wants, I know it comes naturally, but I have a mandate to say what I am saying. There the Minister goes for the water again.

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