Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have had 13 years of Fine Gael in government. We have had 13 years of Deputies Harris, Varadkar and Donnelly as Ministers for Health who, in many instances, made our health services worse. The experience of health for many people under this Government means lengthy waiting times, hospital overcrowding and wasteful spending. Nowhere are the Government's failures so evident and so indefensible as in the cancer services. Expensive, lifesaving equipment lies idle because of staff shortages. That is indefensible. Cancer surgeries are now being cancelled because of hospital overcrowding. That is indefensible. Yet, we have Ministers attempting to defend the indefensible. Rather than owning up to their failures, they try to explain away the truth, that the Government has underfunded the national cancer strategy in three of the past five years. Worse still, when Deputy Cullinane of Sinn Féin set out the route to solving the crisis the Government created, it closed its ears.

There are solutions. They have been set out in this motion. They include properly funding the cancer strategy to improve detection and survival rates; ending the recruitment embargo; bringing our doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers home where we need them, in our hospitals; and funding the 1,500 additional beds that are needed to make our hospitals safe. Above all, however, we need a change of Government. We need a Government that will prioritise our health services and do everything possible and necessary to ensure that every single cancer patient has the best chance of full recovery. It has to be said, these folks are not up for the job. It is time to make way for those who are.

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