Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I did not interrupt the Deputy. She had plenty of time to talk.

I will quote from another organisation that is not known as radically left-wing, Sherry FitzGerald. It tells us in yesterday's newspapers: "The property market is in crisis". It goes on to state: "Rising housing prices mask true dysfunction of property market". I have not heard one single proposal to deal in an integrated way with the housing crisis. The most fundamental part of the solution is that we inform the local authorities and provide funding so that they can build homes for our people.

Time after time, on the doors, people asked us to do something about the health service. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been part of the problem. Both party leaders visited Galway and both said the hospital there was not fit for purpose, particularly the accident and emergency department. I am not one of those Independents who wants to highlight one hospital in Waterford as opposed to another hospital. I am here because I believe in public health for all of us. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, with the help of Labour, have systematically run down the health service. I am familiar with the issue as I have been a member of the regional health forum from since 2006. In the past there was any amount of money for the National Treatment Purchase Fund or the special delivery unit. Now there is money to send our patients abroad.

Would you, a Cheann Comhairle, like to travel abroad to receive treatment in France and borrow money in the credit union if you could get it, or would you like to spend a number of days on a trolley? I say, "Hands up," to see if any Deputy has spent three or four days on a trolley. We should have a sense of outrage about this and be in the business of doing something about it.

I ask the Independents who have gone over to Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to stand with us. I am issuing that challenge. Let them stand with us and stand for, among other solutions, a public housing programme. There is a place for the private landlord, but it must be balanced by an active local authority building programme. Let them stand with us in favour of a public health system, regardless of whether it will take five or ten years. Let them stand with us in support of Luas workers, with whom we stood today and from whom we have learned about their scandalous portrayal by the media. Let us stand with the group we met on the last occasion, Peace and Neutrality Alliance, PANA, which alerted us to the figures showing the militarisation of Shannon Airport and the many other groups we have met in the past few weeks. I did not see Labour Party Members there. I also did not see Fine Gael Deputies there. We also met the representatives of the patients who had suffered symphysiotomy. We have used our strength in numbers on the left to support these vulnerable people.

I proudly say I will take my role seriously, in government as soon as we have the numbers and in opposition in the meantime. If two parties or alliances on the left had the same numbers - 50 and 43 Deputies, respectively - we would be demonised in the media for not forming a government. Shame on them for not doing so.

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