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

The Taoiseach said the last meeting was held in May. One of the most famous promises he made before the last general election concerned his declaration that he would end the scandal of patients on trolleys. He did not do it. Before Christmas we had the largest number of patients on trolleys in the history of the system. The promise of universal health insurance is nowhere on the horizon. We are now talking about it happening in 2025, the general election after next, not that I believe it. Approximately a year and a half ago the Taoiseach said he was taking charge of health policy. The then hapless Minister, Deputy James Reilly, was going through a very difficult patch at the time and the Taoiseach declared that he was taking control. He said the Cabinet sub-committee was "not the Government", that it only provided updates. I got the impression that it was a decision maker, that it would recommend key decisions to the Government. The Minister has acknowledged that he was warned in briefing papers from officials about the trolley crisis six months before it happened. We also know this through freedom of information requests. I presume the sub-committee would also have been informed about this and that it took the decision, in the budget that followed, to ignore the warnings and allow the crisis to develop. Some 400,000 people are on long-term outpatient waiting lists, while inpatient waiting lists are going through the roof.

Even in respect of diagnostic tests 27,000 people are waiting for MRI scans, with one quarter waiting for longer than one year, and 17,300 are waiting for CT scans. The Taoiseach spoke about the issue of contracting with private hospitals. That was always available under the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF. The Government mothballed and undermined the NTPF, with the result that the targets which had been reached of six months for adults and three months for children went through the roof.

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