Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am not doing down health service workers. I have had the experience of being in their care since I came to this part of the island.

Let us go back to what the Taoiseach promised. The Taoiseach promised free GP care for all. Where has that promise gone? The Taoiseach promised to abolish the HSE. Where has that promise gone? The Taoiseach promised to abolish prescription charges. Where has that promise gone? The Taoiseach promised to bring in a universal insurance scheme, but, like the five-point plan, that was simply a public relations stunt.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, said that was never going to work. Five years in, the Taoiseach's Minister - not me or anyone here on the Opposition benches - said it was never going to work. He also said that the chief executives of hospital groups should be allowed to transfer management of hospitals to private operations. He said that hospital groups should be able to conduct business in the manner of semi-State companies. That highlights the ideological position of the Government, which, as I have said, wants to privatise our health service.

I asked the Taoiseach a question which he refused to answer. Why has the Government refused to develop a universal health service for all, based on health needs, free at the point of delivery and paid for through progressive taxation?

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