Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

We welcome the fact that the House is meeting on Friday to consider the Criminal Justice Bill. My colleague, Senator Cummins, and I had proposed that arrangement in discussions with the Leader's office. It is right that there would be a significant period between Second Stage and Committee and Report Stages to allow an extensive Bill to be examined in detail.

A year before the last general election, the then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, published an extensive policy on primary health care and gave a firm commitment that by 2005, there would be 60 primary health care centres established to take pressure off acute hospital services. A year later, in 2006, there are ten pilot primary health care centres.

At the last general election in 2002, Fianna Fáil promised that within two years of its return to office, there would be no waiting list for elective surgery. Now, in 2006 there are 20,000 public patients waiting for acute surgery. Is it any wonder we are ranked 25th out of 26 countries with a record of such incompetence? Commitments were made to the Irish people as far back as 2001, with very significant sums being spent on public relations regarding new proposals for the entire country. Neither of the two parties in this Government, if they are still together, can deliver on the commitments it gave five years ago. The legacy the Government will leave will be its incompetence in health.

If there is another lesson to be learned from the report published yesterday, it is that the Department of Health and Children is like Pravda when it comes to giving information to health agencies assessing figures of this nature. The notion that European agencies must go cap in hand to the Department to get information demonstrates the crisis. The Government has been in office for nine years but there have been no dramatic improvements in that time, a legacy of which it should be ashamed.

I refer to No. 12 on the Order Paper, the Defence of Life and Property Bill 2006. I understand that this is not a Government Bill. I also understand that this is not a Progressive Democrats Bill, despite the fact that a majority of the Progressive Democrats Senators in this House put their names to it. When one compares the Bill with the explanatory memorandum, the names are on the Bill but are not on the explanatory memorandum. The Bill was published in June but the explanatory memorandum was published in May, and the explanatory memorandum includes matters which are not in the Bill. Can someone please clear this up for me? Will this legislation, which is moving in the direction of a Fine Gael proposal announced six months ago that was then rubbished by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, whose hand of God, incidentally, would seem to be on this initiative from Senator Morrissey, come before the House before the end of session? I would suggest to the Leader that there is ample opportunity on Thursday afternoon, when she has five hours to give to something, to let us take this Bill. The Progressive Democrats Senators apparently did not see the Bill. It never went through their parliamentary party, according to the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, on today's "News at One". What is going on in this regard? My party certainly welcomes the change of heart, although it should have happened six months ago.