Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for introducing this motion. I mean no slight on the Minister of State, but it is a shame and disgrace that the Minister for Health is not here. There is no excuse good enough for that. He has been playing to the gallery all the week. He launched some initiative to put ads on bottles, drinks or whatever and announced that Ireland is the first country in the world to do that. At the same time, this Government is suggesting that pubs in cities should remain open until 6 a.m. That is a complete contradiction.

The Government should insist that hospitals and medical staff work through the night and at the weekends in order to deal with the list that is there, because people get sick after 5 p.m. on Fridays and at weekends. People are dying because they cannot get attention if they go into the hospital during the off hours. There are no doctors there to see them and they remain on trolleys. That is unfair and very wrong.

I am proud of the following example. Six weeks ago a 98-year-old woman got on a bus in Killarney at 3.45 a.m. She told me she wanted to save her sight. I am proud that she came back home after a seven-hour journey up to Belfast and a seven-hour journey back. She had the sight in one eye and she is going again to get the second eye done. She is 98 years of age. It is hard on those people to do those things, but that is what we have to do to ensure that they do not go blind. It is a shame, a disgrace and indictment on the Government that this is what it is allowing to happen.

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