Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, An Teachta Cullinane, and his team for bringing forward this motion. Even the most unbiased eye can see our health service is in turmoil. Unfortunately, this is not a new problem. Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments made decisions that caused the crisis we are in or failed to make the decisions necessary to avert it. There are three former Ministers for Health at the Cabinet table with the current Minister. They must all bear responsibility for this mess.

We in Sinn Féin have detailed plans to address the crisis in our health service. In government, we will increase spending on healthcare by €3.3 billion to move from a failing two-tier health system to universal healthcare. More importantly, we will ensure the health budget is spent wisely by talking to front-line workers and patients. Their experiences must be taken into account. We need a major review of how recruitment and retention are managed. In government, Sinn Féin will recruit 6,600 additional front-line health workers, including nurses, midwives and consultants. We will review all vacancies and put in place a plan to do whatever is necessary to fill them. Despite the impact on patient care, there is no urgency on the part of the HSE to fill vacancies. To date, there has been no proper multi-annual capital plan for reaching the necessary capacity at all hospitals and that is not good enough.

It is 17 years since the actor Brendan Gleeson called out the disaster zone that is the health service on "The Late Late Show". It is 16 years since Fine Gael asked the people to sign the contract for a better Ireland. It is 12 years since Enda Kenny promised to end the scandal of waiting lists and patients on trolleys. It is a few weeks since a national newspaper reported the experience of a patient who witnessed the death of another patient on a trolley in a hallway in one of our hospitals.

The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, spoke about the elderly. I am my party's spokesperson on the elderly, and I can tell her that I have been inundated with messages from people whose family members were lying on trolleys in Naas Hospital over Christmas. I am not accepting that not everybody is on a trolley. Front-line workers are doing their best in appalling circumstances. This is what it has come to. The lack of dignity is an absolute disgrace. The Minister and the Ministers of State should be ashamed of themselves.

See this speech in context