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

Strike two against this failed Government relates to health. Under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, so many are denied the medical care that they badly need. Our hospitals are chronically overcrowded and we have a never-ending trolley crisis. Waiting lists have ballooned to record levels. Children with conditions, such as scoliosis or spina bifida, wait years for life-changing surgery. Mental health and disability services are on the floor as families and communities cry out for help. Despite all the promises of change, our front-line health staff continue to endure unacceptable working conditions. The message from the Government to ordinary people is clear: "Do not get sick, do not need an operation or a treatment, and, for God's sake, do not need support services." Bad Government policy ensures that they are not guaranteed the care they need when they need it. When so many are denied vital healthcare and when a government, indeed, asks so many to live in agony and stress, how can anybody come into the Dáil and argue that the Government is doing a good job, let alone vote confidence in it? The truth is that the Government persists with policies that hollow out our public health system and prop up an at times inefficient, inequitable, unjust two-tier health service.

People are sick and tired, by the way, of Government telling them that healthcare cannot be fixed or solved. I do not accept that for a second and I never will. A new Government can deliver a health service that works for everyone - a single-tier national public health service where treatment is accessed based on medical need, not on how much you earn. That is what people deserve. That is worth working for; that is worth fighting for.

Strike three against the Government is on the cost-of-living crisis. Households across the country are at breaking point and the threat of poverty is now very real, not only for those on low and fixed incomes, but for middle-income households too. People simply do not know where they will find the money to pay soaring energy bills and put food on the table and fuel in the car, and the massive cost involved in getting children back to school in September has become a household crisis for many. Families struggle to afford the basics but the Government refuses to do what needs to be done. With a bull-headed stubbornness, it refused to introduce an emergency budget with measures to bring relief. It seems one-upmanship and facing down the Opposition were more important to the Government than helping people.

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