Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Sixteen years ago today, the then Minister for Health and Children, Ms Mary Harney, stated that a national emergency should be declared in relation to our accident and emergency units. Ms Harney stated at the time, it "is not acceptable to the public, not acceptable to me, and not acceptable to the HSE" but 15 years on, we have over 2,000 patients waiting on trolleys in our hospitals and, in regards to ICU beds, we have fewer than half of OECD rates. I say this very genuinely but what does it say about Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in government and about our priorities as a country in regard to those statistics? If the Government was a business, it would be run out of town. These reveal a national shambles in relation to people who are seeking public healthcare. Can the Taoiseach stand over those figures?

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