Brendan Ryan (Labour)

That is a cooker. That is about 60% more than the GP would have cost. I have had the great benefit of not having to have a GP visit the house in many years, since the children were small. I presume that it is now about €60 for a house visit. That is still 40% less than they were going to charge me to have someone stand inside the door to look at my cooker. Let us not blame the GPs for everything. We made a political decision. The Government decided the resource allocation for the health services and that medical card eligibility was down at the bottom of its priorities. In terms of humanity, it was a profoundly wrong decision, but, more importantly, on the level of efficient delivery of cost effective health care for our people, it was a profoundly bad one.

Senator McDowell spoke about a universal system of primary care free at point of use. Far from being cloud cuckoo land, it is the reality of life for people in most of the civilised countries of Europe. In Sweden, Norway, Finland and such countries, people have access to a primary health care system which is effectively free. Let us not hear that nonsense about how it would distort or overburden our economy. This year's world growth competitiveness index shows us slipping down the list for every factor. Going up the list are the civilised countries of Europe that have recognised something the Government has consistently failed to see, that economic prosperity is a means to an end — to provide a good society. The failure of the Government on this issue, as on many others, has been the failure to use prosperity to do what people wanted it to do.