Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I will be supporting the motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris. Nobody with a whit of common sense believes the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohue, and the Government were not aware of the national children's hospital debacle. It is crystal clear that the Minister for Health and the Minister for Finance were fully aware of the huge hospital overrun at the time of the last budget. The Minister for Finance had the chief Government procurement officer on the board of the hospital who was involved at all levels, including financial sub-committee level. The cover-up included confidentiality pledges to ensure the Government would not be formally or officially informed until after the budget. That was because it wanted to continue to give massive tax concessions to its super-rich backers. There is no justification for the Government delaying health and other capital projects and using the excuse of the cost overrun on the children's hospital project. The hospitals serving my constituency of Tipperary, South Tipperary General Hospital and University Hospital Limerick, are the most overcrowded in the country. No cancellation, no suspension, no long-fingering and no delaying of capital projects will be tolerated. I include the completion and opening of the 40-bed modular unit at South Tipperary General Hospital, the building of a new 50-bed unit at the same hospital, the building of a new 100-bed unit at St. Patrick's Hospital in Cashel and the building of a 60-bed unit at University Hospital Limerick.

The Irish super-rich are dripping with wealth and gaining more by the day. The Government's policy is not only not to tax the super-rich but also to give them tax concessions. It is politically the most extreme representative of the super-rich at the expense of citizens. It should bring forward an emergency budget to claw back the €250 million worth of tax concessions given to the super-rich in the last three budgets, including those given to the 25,700 individuals with incomes ranging from €200,000 to in excess of €2 million.

It is time for the Minister for Health to go and to take the Minister for Finance with him-----

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