Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I argue that no matter how many times or how I ask this question I do not receive an answer to it. I do not believe I will get one from the Minister either. The Government is attempting to use its ideological commitment to competition, competitive tendering and the free market, until the next general election, to disguise the fact that the way it does things, with its ideological commitment to free market mechanisms, has cost the State and the taxpayer way more and delivered fewer results. I ask this question specifically about the situation in Drimnagh. Why has it taken six years to deliver a primary healthcare centre to take the pressure off local hospitals such as St. James's Hospital and Tallaght Hospital? It will not be delivered because of the cost overruns and overspend on the national children's hospital project, the national broadband plan and so on. The Minister claims to be a good housekeeper and prides himself on his fiscal prudence. I argue that, rather than delivering the services that are required, he is driving nurses out onto the streets to strike. He has a preference for withholding an increase in the national minimum wage and favouring other ideological commitments and has done so. In this case he is depriving an entire community in Dublin 12 of the services they were promised and which they deserve.

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