Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Like my colleagues here in the Chamber, I will be supporting the Bill. There is broad support for this Bill here today.

I would like to raise something outside of this Bill. I appreciate the brief that Deputy Donnelly has got at this time, the humongous task that he has ahead of him and the pandemic times that we are living in but I want him to be remembered as the man who did something with the health services in this country. I want Deputy Donnelly to take that out of here today. I want Deputy Donnelly to be the leader that we all need him to be to reform the health services of this country. I want Deputy Donnelly to be the leader who will not have the terminally-ill people of this country begging for a medical card. I want him to be the leader who will not have our children with scoliosis waiting for years to have operations. I want him to be the leader who will not have the elderly dying on trolleys in our hospitals. I ask Deputy Donnelly to be that leader. I will do whatever I can to help Deputy Donnelly. I do not know what it is that I can do to help him but that is what I want from him. I want Deputy Donnelly to reform that health service.

I want Deputy Donnelly to be the leader who will champion women's health. People cannot get bowel cancer screening and breast screening now until September. That is wrong on so many levels. We have not even come out of the cervical cancer crisis. That has been the biggest scandal in this State. I ask the Minister to not let that happen to the women of the State. They are the future mothers of the generations to come. I ask the Minister to look after them.

I wish Deputy Donnelly the very best. I want him to be the leader who will lead the health service out of the horrible hole that it is in at this time. There are some fantastic people working in that service and I commend them for that. I beg Deputy Donnelly to be the best Minister for Health this country has ever seen and I wish him well in his portfolio.