Having debated the issue of the health services with the Minister on local radio in Cork recently, I already had an inkling of what was in store. During the programme he refused to state that the Government would eliminate waiting lists in two years, instead saying it would do its best and was working towards that objective. This was one of the very few specific, unequivocal commitments the outgoing Government made during the campaign and it dumped it within two months of election day. It is not in the programme for Government, which contains nothing more than the usual aspiration on the matter. We all aspire to have a good health service and it would be a strange politician who aspired to any other kind of health system. The health service no longer needs aspirations, it needs a strategy backed up by the necessary resources.