Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party view on the health service is rooted in the concept of an organised, efficient, effective and caring health service, delivered for the most part through the public health service. As the Deputy is aware, it has been delivered for centuries in this country by not-for-profit institutions, many of them religious in origin, which have provided care and health services to generations of Irish people. That is where our vision of the health service is rooted.

We inherited the Deputy's party's vision of the health services in the form of the Health Service Executive. It is fair to say that when Fianna Fáil were in government, around 2004, it ran away from the responsibility of holding the Department of Health and the senior Ministry it involved. From there on, Fianna Fáil allocated that portfolio to its then partners in government.

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