David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's speech was peppered with words like "reports" and "timelines". It was full of caveats and, to be quite frank and straight, excuses, and there are no excuses.

As the previous speaker said, we have been told time and again that the same public health experts, whom the Government is saying we must hang our coats on for with everything else, are wrong when it comes to maternity restrictions. It is not good enough. The Minister and the Government need to get their act together. The Government has not gotten anything right in recent times. We have emergency legislation we will debate tomorrow, which it has made a complete mess of. We have the national maternity hospital, which it is making a complete mess of. Time and again we have come in here in good faith, trying to get clarity and trying to get progress for women and their partners. While the Government says it is listening, it is hearing and that it cares, it is not solving the problem. The Government should do its job. The Minister must do his job, get off his backside and sort this out once and for all and not have us having to come back in September with this still being a problem.

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