Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has my sympathy. He is reading out a response from the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, that is effectively a non-response. He talks about programmes, protocols and delivery units, but the reality is that the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, was faced with a crisis in accident and emergency departments last winter. His response was to create a situation where it was addressed to some extent, although in Naas General Hospital, for example, over the past 12 months record numbers of people were treated on trolleys, which is absolutely unacceptable. However, as a result of the initiative taken by the Minister to address the crisis in emergency departments, there has been an exponential and phenomenal increase in the waiting lists for services throughout the health sector.

All of this comes back to one critical issue, the funding of the health services. Over the past two budgets this House was presented with figures for the health budget that were inaccurate, not based on fact, bogus and which have been described on a number of occasions by Members on this side of the House as fraudulent. The people who brought them before the House knew they were not figures that could sustain the health services for the period ahead. Now, we have a situation where incredible numbers of people continue to build up month after month on the various waiting lists of hospitals throughout the country. Furthermore, we do not know where we are going in terms of the funding of the health service or whether a Supplementary Estimate will be brought forward by the Department of Health.

Perhaps if the Minister could us an assurance today that there will be a Supplementary Estimate, we might have some expectation of seeing these incredible waiting lists addressed in the short term.

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