Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----I wish him well. However, one of the many legacies in respect of which he may look in the rear mirror and feel very disappointed would be health. As I stand here, there are in excess of 666,000 people on hospital waiting lists in our State. This is clearly a sad indictment of the health policy of this Government. When one considers the recent statistics from our census that over the next 30 years it is estimated that the population of those over 65 will double and the population of those over 85 will quadruple, two things are clear. We have a serious problem but, more importantly, our increasing population and the age of our population highlight that it will get worse. Will the Leader ask the Minister to come to the House and advise us of the immediate actions he plans to implement to tackle the current problem and the future plans he has to tackle the issue of our ageing population?