Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

This side of the House does not agree to the Order of Business. We will oppose it on the grounds that the Health Service Executive is once again implementing a regime of dangerous and cruel cutbacks across the health service. We have the very serious situation where the trade union IMPACT and its 28,000 health workers have sanctioned industrial action. They say that they are doing this because the current cutbacks which they are experiencing in the services are harming patients, putting extra pressure on staff and have led to promised health service improvements being shelved.

We also have the serious situation of the pharmacy dispute, known to Senators across the House. What is the Government doing? Apparently the independent chair has made some recommendations. Is the Government accepting his recommendations so that this dispute does not escalate and cause patients to suffer? We are all getting telephone calls from patients who are concerned about their medication and about what is going to happen if this dispute goes to the edge as it appears it might.

Many Senators will have seen the television programme last night about homeless people in Dublin. Senator Paschal Donohue raised this matter in the House some weeks ago. The television programme "Prime Time" reported last night that seven homeless people died in a two-week period over Easter. These seven people died while at least five major facilities for the homeless in Dublin were either lying idle or were under-utilised owing to cutbacks by the HSE. I must ask Senator Boyle what the Green Party is doing in Government. What can he tell us about these cutbacks and the scale of them? What action is being taken to reform the HSE and deal with the bureaucracy that is spoken about by everybody? This is the critical issue. Frontline services are being affected and so are patients, as IMPACT has highlighted. I will oppose the Order of Business to allow for a debate on these important matters today.