Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Under the watch of the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Harris, has led our health service into a state of absolute crisis. In recent weeks, nurses and midwives were forced to engage in strike action because their legitimate and correct concerns in respect of the recruitment and retention crisis were ignored by the Taoiseach and his Government. GPs have protested outside Leinster House at the Government's failure to invest adequately in primary care. Hospital waiting lists have continued to grow, and last week reached new record levels, with more than 523,000 patients now waiting for an outpatient consultation and over 72,000 waiting for an inpatient procedure.

That is absolutely scandalous. The trolley crisis continues unabated. Today there are 512 patients on trolleys in hospitals throughout the State. Despite this, only half of the additional beds promised in the HSE's winter plan have been opened, which is absolute madness. Last week we learned that women who had availed of a smear test following the CervicalCheck scandal last year were waiting up to six months to get the test results. To top it all off, we have the calamity surrounding the cost overrun – I heard the Taoiseach today spinning it as a cost underestimation - on the national children's hospital project. It is going to have a serious knock-on effect in the delivery of other health projects throughout the State. For example, in Limerick the provision of a new 60-bed ward block at University Hospital Limerick is the latest project to face the axe, despite the fact that University Hospital Limerick is consistently one of the hospitals worst affected by overcrowding in the State. This is a serious blow to people across the mid-west region and, quite frankly, unforgivable.

In that regard, I acknowledge the announcement this morning by the Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, An Teachta Harty, that he would support Sinn Féin's motion of no confidencein the Minister for Health tomorrow evening. That is significant and I am sure An Teachta Harty has not taken the decision lightly. I am sure he has arrived at the conclusion, with the rest of us, that something has to be done because we cannot tolerate the health service in this crisis. The Taoiseach's friends in Fianna Fáil who, as he says, spin yarns may well be prepared to stand aside, allow the status quoto prevail and allow an incompetent Minister to remain in office, but we will not. Deputy Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil will have the opportunity to put up or shut up tomorrow evening in that regard.

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