Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We also proposed that, but let us be under no illusions. The Minister is a bit like a nasty jockey on a very tired horse that is trying to get him up to the line and using the whip too much. The bottom line is that the HSE simply has not got adequate resources in certain areas to deal with these waiting lists and there is consistent spin in the past week that it is all the HSE's fault. The bottom line is that the previous two Ministers for Health were from the Minister's own party. They were James Reilly, who was removed and sent to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and Deputy Varadkar, who was removed and slipped off into the Department of Social Protection.

The bottom line is that Fine Gael's policies have absolutely failed and for a number of reasons. First, Fine Gael said that it would commit to universal health insurance. For the first three of the last six years, Fine Gael spoke about universal health insurance and tearing up the HSE and getting rid of it. The only thing that happened was the then Minister, James Reilly, sacked the HSE board. The reason I am saying this is that we are shattered from talking about reform. We are talking about it endlessly but we are not talking about delivery of services to patients. Patients are consistently waiting inordinate periods for outpatient and inpatient appointments, procedures and diagnostics. We now find that 633,000 people are waiting which is a shameful indictment. The bottom line is that the vast majority rests with the policies that the Government has not been pursuing over the past number of years, that is, trying to expand capacity in the key areas where there was an inordinate waiting list as opposed to flexing the muscles and threatening the HSE with abolition and not doing it and threatening that managers would be sacked but not doing it.

Does the Minister have confidence in the management? The first thing I have to ask is if the Minister has confidence in Mr. O'Brien because he is the top manager. If he is to be honest with himself, the Minister will have to start by looking at the top if he does not have confidence in management. Let us get real, let us focus on patients and let us stop this undermining of the organisation that is charged with the responsibility of delivering health care.

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