Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion fully. Just as the housing crisis was manufactured by the Government and just as the mortgage crisis was manufactured, the crisis in the accident and emergency departments in our hospitals throughout the State is a manufactured one. What is stark in all these crises is that the Minister and his Government are unwilling to do anything about it. Health services have never recovered from the crisis initiated in the 1980s with the "Mac the Knife" cuts when more than 3,000 beds were taken out of our hospitals. By the time 2008 and 2009 came, those beds had not been replaced. The Government has now taken a further 2,500 beds out of hospitals throughout the country through the cuts it has implemented. The EU average is five beds per 1,000 of population. In Germany, the average is eight beds per 1,000 of population. In Ireland, we have 2.5 beds per 1,000 of population. That is the crisis in our health service and the crisis over which the Minister and his colleagues in government have presided. Indeed, Fianna Fáil presided over it in its time.

The only solution to the crisis is investment. The solution is to invest in our health services and build a service that can cater to everyone's needs. We have a growing elderly population. In the next ten years, our population of over 65s will double. We need to be building extra beds, not merely restoring the 5,500 beds which have been taken out in the past 20 years, to cater for the extra demographic demand coming down the line. In its hope of buying the election, the Government is promising all sorts of tax cuts and promising to build proper services nationally. The two are not compatible. The Government is trying to sell the people a pup in trying to sell that proposition. We need investment. To provide that, we must improve and maintain the revenue we have in a booming society. We must build the services which can meet the needs of our population nationally.

See this speech in context