John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

There are fewer students in primary education than in 1997, and that is why the pupil-teacher ratio has fallen. It has nothing to do with the Government spending extra money.

The one noteworthy aspect of the budget this year was the provision of extra resources for disability. I welcomed it when we had our debate that night, and I still welcome it. However, I was confronted last week with an example of how unyielding the system can be regarding those with disabilities. A Kilkenny man in his 30s is physically disabled but can drive a car and is working on a FÁS scheme in an institution in the town. However, he has been told that his place no longer exists and that he must pack his bags and go home. There is no other comparable FÁS position anywhere in the county that might fulfil his needs, yet he has been trying to do something for himself and is no real burden on the State. He is not reliant on any State care. He is still living at home with his family but finds that he has been kicked in the teeth, even after the budget announcement of extra provision for people with disabilities. Government spokespersons all too often fail to mention that aspect when they get the opportunity.

The Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, also mentioned the increase in employment in the public services. Health is the primary area where we have seen dramatic increases. There has been a 46% rise in those employed in the health services since 1997, when these low spenders and taxers entered Government. However, of those extra staff only 22% are doctors or nurses. The other 78% are administrators of some shape or form. They push pens and fill in forms. I know that many do valuable work, but one has to question whether we need that amount of bureaucracy in the health service.

I have said that here before, and I do not suggest that we could go back to the system that prevailed in the past where one had one or two nuns running every hospital. That system is obviously in the dim and distant past and will not return. However, if 50 years ago one or two nuns could run a hospital in Kilkenny, I cannot see why one needs an army of public servants running around the corridors of hospitals trying to manage the medical service. It is being run into the ground by the degree of needless bureaucracy involved in the sector. Rather than the cutback in bureaucracy that we were promised by the Health Service Executive, we are seeing an extra layer added to the existing health board structure. We are seeing more positions created rather than an attempt by the Government to streamline the health services and ensure we get better value for money across Government spending.

I also note that spending under the heading "hospitals" has more than doubled from just under €2 billion to €4.2 billion in the seven years that the Government has been in office. That is a staggering increase, yet we all have daily experience of the fact that such problems persist in the health services. An annual event occurs most acutely in Dublin but also up and down the country in hospital accident and emergency facilities whereby people end up on trolleys for days. Sometimes they are lucky if they get a chair. My own secretary had the misfortune of being ill before Christmas and was in a chair with a drip for almost a day in a Dublin hospital. Hers was not an exceptional case. We have heard of people finding themselves in similar positions, most notably in Dublin.

I am also interested that the Minister of State seems to exemplify the new-found devotion among members of the Government to cutting back waste and ensuring that money is better spent. In his own Department, €48 million was spent on the new drainage scheme in my own city of Kilkenny which was badly needed. That job was originally projected to cost €14 million but went up to over three times the original estimate. A few weeks ago the salmon could not get back up the river, despite the fact that €48 million had been spent on the new scheme. A weir was put in that did not allow the fish to get back up the river. It is a joke that such a development would take place and that an urgently-needed flood relief scheme would run so wildly over budget and be so badly designed that it did not take into account the fact that there were fish in the river. At least we still have fish in the river in Kilkenny.