James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for State for listening to this debate and compliment the Senators who made contributions to it, particularly those from this side of the House.

Instead of tabling an amendment to the motion, it would have been better for the Government to apologise to the public for wasting public funding. We have learned in the last week that the Government wasted €3 million on a website that never got off the ground. It wasted €150 million on the PPARs episode, which involved paying off consultants and so forth. We also heard the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, dismissing the sum of €150 million as a drop in the ocean in the context of the health budget. The money that was wasted by the Government would provide a large number of services for the elderly. We could be talking about a state-of-the-art home help service today were it not for the fact that the Government wasted so much money on consultants. Shame on the Government for that.

I am very annoyed and a large number of people who visited my office last weekend were disgusted at the manner in which the Government wasted this money and at the comments of Deputy Dempsey, when he argued that the money only represented 1% of spending on health. That money would have enabled us to provide care for our handicapped, respite for infirm people in their homes and other such services.

We have heard a lot of spin from the Government today and indeed, the Minister of State only added to it. Senator Feeney talked about nursing home subventions but I wish to point out that the subvention has not been increased in the last ten years.