Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That was a truly amazing answer. The achievement of the Government is: 4,000 fewer nurses. Bualadh bos. There are 68,000 people waiting for inpatient treatment. Well done; good job. There are 400,000 people waiting for outpatient appointments. This is before we come to the absolute chaos in accident and emergency units. The Tánaiste should not attempt to hide behind the valiant efforts of staff within the health system to get the Government off the hook. In fact, the achievements of staff in the health service stand in stark contrast to the abject failure of the Government. The contrast could not be more dramatic. I have no doubt that if any of those workers watched this exchange and heard what the Tánaiste said, they would, to say the least, find it ironic that the Tánaiste would laud them for their efforts, having left them so badly in the lurch.

The Tánaiste's claims about new money for health are entirely bogus. She knows well that only €97 million of the money referred to is new money and that most of that was already committed. She knows that funding for hospitals - this is a matter of public record - is €100 million less than required. She knows that there is €1.5 billion less in the health budget now than there was in 2008. She may also know there are campaigners for medical cards for chronically sick children outside the Dáil today. They do not buy or believe for a minute the Tánaiste's attempt at propaganda that the Government has made the system better. That is manifestly not the case.

The 405 patients who are on trolleys in hospitals today are not convinced either. Who could blame them? Thousands of people with chronic conditions who cannot get access to the treatment they badly need do not believe the Tánaiste either.

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