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

The Minister’s party outlined a roadmap in advance of the election and in the programme for Government. We can travel that road for a long time but it did make many promises and campaigned on many issues, none of which has been implemented, including free GP care for everybody, Roscommon, Mallow and Bantry hospitals etc. - name them and the Minister’s party campaigned on them. Anywhere there was a lorry they were up on it, shouting to the high heavens. With all that talk, commitments have not been made. What is definite now is that the 76,666 people waiting, admittedly some are only waiting a short time, are in the difficulty that there is an escalating number going into the system and they are not being treated or dealt with. The key pinch points are, as the Minister and Minister of State have accepted, lack of funding for the fair deal scheme, delayed discharges and recruitment of consultants. These are all well within the Minister’s gift to address but many measures were populism, such as cutting consultants’ pay when he knows in his heart and soul that to recruit people it is necessary to maintain a certain level of remuneration rather than hunt people out of the country and pretend that he wants them back again. The Minister needs to be consistent. That is not the case.

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