Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I do not know. I remember six months ago, when the Minister of State was not in government and, like me, she was crying out about this. It is not a massive increase from €88,000 in 2019 to €127,000 in 2024; it is nothing in the scheme of things. The Minister of State mentioned all the extra staff. How many of them are penpushers and executives in made-up jobs - that is what they are - and not nurses or front-line staff? It is a shocking situation.

A month ago, I stood in Clonmel in front of St. Joseph's Hospital for the opening of the Slievenamon wing. I met a number of new executives, many of whom were from the Minister of State's area. I mean no disrespect to them, but they had positions that we never had before, namely, executives, directors of this and that and directors of everything, except patient care. We are taking on people - of course we are - in management jobs.

Self-serving officials: that is what is wrong in the HSE. We have spineless Ministers who will not challenge them. We have spent five hours tonight talking about it here, all sides of the House condemning what is going on in the HSE. We have these mean, hungry, desperate cuts to vulnerable people. Thankfully, they will get radium injections or other treatment. What about a person who is paraplegic or an amputee? What about the people who have severe diabetes or many other conditions? We are picking and choosing who is sick and vulnerable while we have fat cats getting fatter and we have board members of the HSE, the runaway cost of the children's hospital and the disgraceful, diabolical lack of management and accountability.

Then we make these mean cuts. We talked about the dirty dozen cuts by Charlie McCreevy in the past. This is so mean-spirited and we expect voluntary organisations like the Order of Malta, Civil Defence and Red Cross to burn out their ambulances and staff, who are volunteers, while officials and fat cats go around the conferences and everything else. Bring back the matrons to the hospitals to make the savings and have the hospitals clean, not plethoras of management who are not managing. They were never managers in the first place. Some of them got into those jobs by pull. It is a shocking situation when we treat vulnerable people in our society like this and the Minister of State cannot argue against it.

See this speech in context