Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Does the Taoiseach accept any responsibility for this situation? When one cuts a hospital's budget by €14 million, this is what happens. The waiting list under the fair deal scheme increased to nearly 20 weeks in November, or an average of 15 weeks across those applying for a fair deal scheme bed. Clearly, there will be delayed discharges from hospitals when one screws the budget to that extent. All of this is due to the budget the Government decided to introduce last year. That is why discretionary medical cards became a major issue. It was not an accident on the part of bureaucrats in doing things in the wrong way; it was something called medical card probity, based on unrealistic and dishonest figures. What has happened in the health service in the past 12 months is a scandal. We are beginning to witness more of the repercussions in what happened in Beaumont hospital on Friday. The budget was cut to the bone; the health service was screwed and a mirage and spin were produced to suggest people could live within budgets that were never realistic. That is why we have appalling treatment of older people in hospitals and emergency departments. There is no dignity or privacy for them. The same happened in respect of medical cards. Ill children and adults lost their medical cards because of a dishonest budgetary strategy, designed more than 12 months ago, which is still having an appalling impact on day to day health services.

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