Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A couple of hundred people are being disenfranchised for the want of two nurses, which highlights the massive problem that is the shortage of nurses. If two nurses out of the system can have that big an impact, what happens if four or five nurses are sick tonight because of an outbreak of a bug in the mid-west? Could it lead to the closure of a number of wards at University Hospital Limerick? Is the line that fine at the moment? Is that what has been achieved? Is she telling me that, having dispensed with the HSE and its board and having taken control of the delivery of health services in this State for the past four years, the Department is still relying on excuses grounded in not knowing or expecting a couple of people would be off sick? Is that any way to run a health service? I am not directing this at the Minister of State personally but towards the Government and the senior Minister who hoodwinked the people. The Government lay the blame for the difficulties on the heads of the HSE when in truth it was a ruse to win an election. Taking control back into the Department of Health has made things worse. The Minister of State is saying it is not a financial resources issue. It is a result of massively poor planning, responsibility for which lies firmly and squarely at the feet of the Minister for Health and the Government.

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