Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has come in at three times the €650 million estimate. The Taoiseach told us that, short of an asteroid hitting the planet, there was enough money to build the hospital. In 2016, the hospital was expected to open in 2020. Three years later that date has moved to 2023. Failures and delays such as these infuriate so many people. We saw failure and delay again last Friday evening with the publication of the new hospital waiting lists. At the start of 2015, when he was Minister for Health, the Taoiseach abandoned the targets set for waiting lists by his predecessor, now Senator James Reilly. Under those targets, outpatients were to be seen within a year and inpatients and day cases were to be treated within eight months. Instead the now Taoiseach set new targets of 18 months to be achieved by mid-2015. We all know these targets were never met and the outpatient waiting times are simply scandalous. It would be wrong of me to say that there has been no improvement in the reduction of inpatient waiting times. They have moved from 86,000 to 70,000 since 2017, which is welcome. However, the key to this improvement has been the restoration of the National Treatment Purchase Fund. Its reactivation was secured under the confidence and supply arrangement and its success to date has been positive.

I would also like to mention the challenges in care for the elderly arising from both the lack of provision of home help, which is massively underfunded, and now the stalling of the funding for the fair deal scheme. Thankfully, people are living much longer now, which is great news. We have to plan accordingly for those older people who need extra care in their home or in a nursing home.

Another area of life where waiting seems to be the signature policy of this Government is the national broadband plan. This week we are yet again faced with another missed deadline for it. Yesterday the Taoiseach informed the Dáil that the full cost would be €3 billion inclusive of VAT, as if that was a saving. This is the same plan that was initially estimated at €500 million. Keeping a lid on cost overruns does not seem to be a priority for this Government. It seems to prefer to describe cost overruns as underestimations.

I thank the Taoiseach for coming to this House today. It is great to see a full attendance, particularly among Fine Gael colleagues, although at times their absence contributes to failures of delivery.