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

A number of very important debates will happen next year. These debates are on very complex and quite difficult issues, but I believe these difficulties are not impossible to overcome. Successive governments have failed to address them in any meaningful way.

These debates surround the issues of drug reform and end-of-life choices. During this week the Joint Committee on Justice published a report recommending a different approach to drugs for personal use. It is in the Government's power to change policy that will have a profound effect on all our citizens. To except the status quois to compound failure.

This Government still resides over a two-tier health system. It is a system in which hundreds of thousands of people still have to wait for medical procedures and intervention and in which 50% of citizens still have to get private insurance. That is not a system that works. I do not believe this Government is capable of ending the inequalities in health and in our society.

Today is largely cosmetic. It is a revolution we need, not a reshuffle.

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