Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad just to get the chance. As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle states, I have only two minutes. The nation has lost confidence in the health service. There are so many different issues, day after day. There is one scandal after another. Deputy Harris will remember well, when he became Minister for Health, that I stated he was a young man and I wished him well, but I honestly have to say to him that he has failed in his time so far to deliver or to change anything. In fact, things are getting worse day by day, for instance, with the children's hospital. Maybe the CervicalCheck issue did not start out with the Minister, but there are radiology tests down in Kerry involving false negatives as well. We do not know how many people have died because of those radiology tests - maybe four, five or six. We are not sure. Even one is too many. There is the trolley crisis. How many times have we highlighted it? There are the accident and emergency queues and the waiting lists. There are cataract patients going blind who have to bussed elsewhere for treatment. We took a bus up, me and Deputy Michael Collins, on Friday last, and that bus was coming down when another bus was going up on Saturday. They are making the route - that is the truth - one day after another.

Michael spoke about the late Emma Mhic Mhathúna. We admired her so much. She gave her last days in Kerry. She was bubbly. She was so popular with everyone, and in a short space of time, she struck a chord with everyone. It is so sad what happened in her case, and her family so young left behind. She adored them all. It is so sad what has happened. We are appealing to the Minister in that regard to ensure that this debacle does not happen again.

I do not understand why we have to do these tests abroad, why we cannot have them done in-house, as with all the other areas, and have a service that we should be proud of. We talk about Cuba. It is a dictatorship. If a person presents with a problem or a need for an operation today, I am told, whether it is a hip or whatever, he or she will have it tomorrow. What is wrong here?

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