Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join colleagues in paying tribute to the hospital staff who have been working in very strained conditions in recent weeks. Several speakers urged that this issue not be used as a political football and that we avoid point scoring, playing on people's unfortunate circumstances and so forth. The Taoiseach stated boldly before the last election that he would end the scandal of patients on trolleys. Immediately after the election, his appointed Minister for Health said that never again would there be 569 people on trolleys on any given day while this Government was in office. The then Minister made that statement in what appeared to be a most sincere fashion. He looked into the camera and made a firm commitment to - almost a contract with - the Irish people that this would be the case.

It is unfortunate that members of the Government now say the Opposition should not use this issue as a political football for point scoring. Those statements came in 2011 just before and after an election. We must remind people, by placing on the public record, again of many of these and other commitments that have not been honoured by this Government. They were probably never going to be honoured by the Government. Against the background of a massive national and international economic collapse, the incoming Government played on people's fears, using and abusing those fears. The Government now hopes and expects that these commitments can be wiped from recent history. The final third of the fiscal rectification necessary had been completed and put in place before they assumed office. Despite having voted against it at every opportunity and ridiculing what it contained, they now want the plan to be the catalyst for retaining power at the next election.

They gave a commitment that bondholders would be burned. The current Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, gave a commitment that not another red cent would be paid to banks. He is the straight talker who has proven to be nothing more than a commentator during this sorry debacle. We were told that there would be a democratic revolution and that there would be no guillotines. Deputy Fitzmaurice has spoken lately of turning the system upside down, but that is the sort of rhetoric we heard from this Government prior to the last election and on assuming office. We were also told there would be no increase in third-level fees.

In June 2012, the Government said there would be retrospective recapitalisation of the banks, which would be the game changer to allow this country to prosper and obtain the recovery it deserved. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we heard last weekend when that was slipped into the rhetoric. The Government now wants us to believe there will be full employment by 2018. They say that USC rates will be drastically reduced and that the top rate of tax will also be cut. They say there will be a second pre-school year for children and that they will abolish the public sector pension levy. In addition, they say a five-year plan on taxation will be published in April. These are the new pipe dreams. It is the new virtual reality being given on the back of a lorry in Roscommon by many members of the Government.

Fianna Fáil is a republican party that fights for constitutional republicanism. It is committed and dedicated to the bedrock which established the State, including the Proclamation. We believe in fairness, equality and equal opportunities in education, as well as the provision of care for the sick and elderly, and security for all the country's inhabitants. That is what republicanism is about.

This Government would have us believe that the recovery is ongoing and the emergency is over. Unfortunately, however, that recovery is not evident in my constituency or in many others. It is not evident in hospital accident and emergency departments throughout the country, nor when 1,400 places in the fair deal scheme are slashed. Neither is it evident when community care facilities are diminished, nor when home help hours are being slashed. It is not evident when we see the slow place in rolling out primary care centres, or in the manner in which ambulance personnel are asked to work. It is not evident in the lack of funding made available for house adaptation grants for the disabled and elderly. They are told they will have to wait from three to five years before their applications are adjudicated upon.

If the emergency was truly over, we could afford the necessary staffing levels for hospitals, and many of the issues I have mentioned could be addressed also. If the emergency was truly over, the Government would abolish the USC, which was an emergency tax for an emergency situation. If the emergency is over, why does the Government not abolish the USC and stop talking about it? They cannot do so, however, and they know it.

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