Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I stated, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, wishes to leave a legacy, but he will make his mark for all the wrong reasons. The housing plan announced yesterday was a reannouncement of previous plans. It is, to a large degree, a work of fiction. The Health Service Executive's service plan which will be published today will also largely be a work of fiction.

Hans Christian Anderson would have been proud of it because the plan is way different from the reality. The reality we see on the ground is exemplified by the report of the Coroner's Court in Limerick, as detailed in today's newspapers. A critically ill man was brought to the accident and emergency department of Limerick University Hospital but never saw a doctor before he died. That is the reality on the ground. What we also see in emergency departments is paramedics arriving with patients on stretchers and having to stay there for hours before over-worked doctors can take the patients off their hands. The ambulances involved are not available during that time because the system is not working. That is the reality. Today there are 800 people in hospitals, taking up beds, who should not be there. They are there because the fair deal scheme has been cut. That is the reality on the ground. Whatever about the plan - which is a work of fiction to a large degree - the reality is entirely different.

In Kerry, the scandal ---