John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

It does not do politics or politicians any good to act in such a manner. I was particularly interested in the Minister of State's opening remarks. He spoke about the 96,000 people that are now employed providing health services, compared to 66,000 in 1997. He explained there were 6,000 extra nurses and 8,500 extra doctors and dentists. That means, presumably, that 16,000 or 17,000 extra people were employed in administration for that period.