Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Multiply that figure by five and it approximates to the more than 400,000 people who are waiting today for hospital outpatient appointments. We must evaluate the statements made thus far today through the prism of these individuals' experiences of waiting for urgent appointments or who are living with debilitating conditions. I can provide examples from my own area which will be repeated throughout the country. In Cork alone, the number of people waiting to see an orthopaedic hospital consultant has increased by one third in 18 months. The numbers waiting to see an ophthalmologist have increased by 55% in the same period. The number of women waiting to see a gynaecologist has increased by 37%. Where is the recovery for those people? The Government is not giving them any light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the future of this country.

This is why last October, in a departure from the usual politics of opposition, we advocated investing in these critical service shortages given that we had the headway to do so for the first time in the eight years. The Government did not take our advice, however. With each passing month this Government remains in power, the divisions in society grow deeper. Those divisions have been exacerbated by the regressive budgets it has implemented in the past four years, which have proportionately taken much more from those on low and middle incomes than from those on the highest incomes. The Government's ideology was exposed last October, when for the first time in almost a decade there was scope to give something back. The Government gave it back to those on the highest incomes. The main changes to the income tax changes in the budget were to the higher rate of tax, and benefitted only one out of six income earners.

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