Yesterday, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children announced she had made a discovery and the nation quite frankly is aghast, not at what she has discovered but that it has taken her so long to recognise the basis of this discovery, that we have a serious crisis in our accident and emergency units throughout the hospital network. It is absolutely incredible that despite the repeated pointing out of this fact in this Chamber by Opposition voice after Opposition voice, it has taken this time for this Minister to recognise the crisis and the emergency that exists. This is not something that has only happened in the past week. This has been building not only since 2002 but going back to when the Government first took office in 1997. The situation today is much worse.

Does the Taoiseach recall that in his health strategy in 2001 he stated that an additional 3,000 beds would be needed in the public health system, yet we see the continuation of public money being spent in the provision of private health care? We see the absolutely incredible situation where the Taoiseach's manifesto in the last general election in 2002 declared he would work towards the end of the two-tier system, yet he is reinforcing it. Does he not think it is obscene to see the numbers of consultant doctors competing for the €1 million suites in the new private hospital development that the Tánaiste heralded and introduced in Dublin? Those investments and that opportunity have been funded by this Government out of public moneys. The reality is that we want to see our public moneys invested in public health provision and not in tax breaks for private health care providers who are there to make profit. Instead of that money being wasted as it is, and the further waste in terms of the failed effort on the part of the HSE to bring in various computer systems, it could have provided 1,000 of those 3,000 acute hospital beds.

Last week I raised what I described as the farce of the recent reference by the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children that accident and emergency units were to be renamed and reconfigured to include admission lounges yet we heard on national radio this morning where an accident and emergency consultant in St. James's Hospital described the reality more as departure lounges because in that hospital alone they are losing at least one patient per month because of the inadequate provision for people presenting at that accident and emergency unit. Will the Taoiseach recognise that the only way to address this national emergency is for the Government to ensure all public moneys are invested in the public health system and that we move with alacrity to ensure the provision of the 3,000 additional acute hospital beds to which the Government committed in its health strategy in 2001?

There is no need for me to go back over all of the issues but I will just mention a few of them. The Deputy knows the Government's view on the common hospital contract. The Tánaiste has set out the position. He is also aware that the existing 2,000 consultants have contracts and they provide for a private and medical mix.

That Mr. Haughey provided.

Mr. Haughey's negotiations.

Deputy Noonan negotiated them in the Opposition's time in power.

Historically, the argument has been that we have provided very good medical consultants. A number of negotiations have been held as far back as 1974 to try to change that. The late Brendan Corish tried that and totally failed. Charles Haughey made contracts in 1979 and Deputy Noonan gave further concessions. Consultants have extremely strongly based contracts. The Tánaiste set out her position in negotiations to try to make changes and amendments to that. Without losing the professionalism we have we could make a number of changes for new posts. We would like to try to get on with those negotiations and we would like the consultants' associations to work with us to make these changes, as we would also like other sectors in the health service to work to make these changes.

In the past the argument was about resources but this is not about resources. Neither is it about staff numbers. It is about how we manage the health care system on the accident and emergency side. It is not a case of the Government issuing a diktat and then it all just happens. The Government is not saying it is the responsibility of the HSE and we have nothing to do with it. We spend an enormous amount of time, collectively, working on this issue which is important for the public. That is why we have spent a huge amount of resources improving the standards of hospitals in terms of facilities, beds and equipment.

Yesterday, the Tánaiste stated that resources will be targeted for improvements that will be made and she has outlined those. We have changed practices so that better patient care will be rewarded so we can try and deal with these matters. Diagnostic tests will be provided at weekends and evenings which will help the waiting time. New beds will be assigned immediately to accident and emergency units to ensure older people do not have the difficulties of being on trolleys. People will be discharged each day of the week to keep beds available, which does not happen at present in all hospitals. Discharges will be planned so that home care will be ready when patients are medically fit. We will put 3,000 new home care packages in place. People will be helped to move out of hospital beds by the provision of more home care packages and nursing home places. If patients go home they will get a home nursing home package to assist them which works very well in other countries.

The HSE will step up the pace of availability of home care places. It will fund as many places in the community and private sector as it takes. For the past umpteen budgets, the Government has put in additional resources to try to make this possible. We have bought and provided additional beds and built additional accident and emergency services. It is not a question of making excuses but we require the co-operation of those in the medical service. We are aware of the statistics; we do not need everyone telling us the figures every day because we are provided with them. We need people working collectively to try to resolve the problems.

In answer to Deputy Ó Caoláin, I wish the problems of dealing with industrial relations issues with the Irish medical service were as easy as he suggests because they are not and I have a feeling they never will be.

I appreciate it is not easy but neither was it easy for Aneurin Bevan when he took on the whole consultant and GP situation in Britain. I remind the Taoiseach that the consultant contract was in his party's manifesto in 2002 when he indicated a commitment to end the two-tier system. Does he really believe this is the appropriate Minister to be in charge of working that out, of delivering on that commitment? Does he really believe her record measures up to the commitment that he and his party put before the people in 2002? If he believes this, it is time he took a wake-up call because the two do not replicate——

The Deputy should look to his own record.

Allow Deputy Ó Caoláin without interruption.