Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I was elected by the people of Dublin Mid-West as a voice against the ideology of austerity. Austerity seeks to punish collectively the working people of this country for the greed of a few. That few, who caused financial and economic chaos, thought they had got away with the perfect robbery. They almost did, until the people of Ireland rose up against the imposition of water charges. Deputy Enda Kenny was right when he said this was about more than just water. The water charges were everything that is wrong with a system that makes the working people of Ireland, who got us out of the financial mess over recent years, pay for it again.

To make no bones about it, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have brought untold misery on working people in Ireland over the past eight years. This Administration, like the previous two Governments, will continue with the same neoliberal agenda.

I have seen how people have been demoralised and beaten down by the Government's policies. I will give one example. The Government said it would reduce the waiting time for emergency departments in hospitals, but there is no commitment to reduce the waiting lists for non-emergency procedures. I have met people who are waiting for years for operations. If one belongs to the 40% of the Irish population who are on medical cards, one will wait 125 days for an MRI scan. By then, the cancer cells might have grown to dangerous levels. In contrast, if one has the money, one can pay for a private MRI scan within six days. With early detection, one's chances of survival dramatically increase. Those shocking figures show how Ireland’s two-tier health system lead to the earlier deaths of poorer people.

In Britain the NHS guidelines state that a suspected cancer patient should be seen by a specialist within two weeks. In other words, he or she must get an MRI scan and meet a specialist long before an Irish patient is even diagnosed. The total failure to provide for early detection in the Irish public health system is one of the reasons poorer people die earlier. A recent study by the Irish Council for General Practitioners found that cancer related deaths in the lower socioeconomic groups are double that among higher socioeconomic groups. The programme for Government will not change that one iota.

Today is the first day a Fine Gael Taoiseach has been re-elected, but that re-election is a hollow victory. Essentially, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have now merged and have been soundly defeated by a popular movement never seen in the history of the State. The water charges movement brought the best out of people. It brought people together and gave them confidence not only in themselves but in their communities. It politicised them and made them question everything about what was wrong in politics in this country. It gave us hope and gave the voiceless a voice. I want the Government to take note that a sleeping giant has awoken and is never going to sleep again. There is a new resurgence of militancy in working class communities throughout Ireland and they are more organised than was previously the case.

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