It is becoming increasingly obvious that this Government is on its last legs. As the Taoiseach heads to his Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis at the weekend, I am sure he will be looking back on ten years of promises, and maybe he will make a few more. Given that we will not have the opportunity presented to us this morning again, perhaps he will reflect on a few of the promises he made before he makes any new ones.

The Deputy should ask one topical question.

Broken promises.

He will probably start in 1950.

That was a very timely intervention, a Cheann Comhairle. I have no intention of reading out the Government's programme for 2002 but I recall the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, saying on 6 May 2002 that the Government would permanently end waiting lists in our hospitals within two years. One should remember that promise.

I remember the promise on prisons and crime to the effect that the Government would avoid overcrowding and reopening the revolving door. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is not even present.

He is the revolving door.

On class sizes, it was promised that the average pupil-teacher ratio in classes for children under nine would be below 20:1 by 2007. This was the third promise. In respect of the transport chaos on the M50, the Taoiseach said he would develop the metro for Dublin, achieving a link to Dublin Airport by 2007. Let us not forget the memorable words of the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, that the €52 million investment by this Government on behalf of taxpayers is absolutely secure and that we would see those machines used.

They are secure in warehouses.

Absolutely stored.

Again, I draw the Deputy's attention to the Standing Order. There is a limit on the time allowed for questions.

It is a matter of broken promises.

A brief question on one matter is allowed.

If there were only one, he would be brief.

One matter is the failure of the Government.

It is hard to be brief on broken promises.

In fairness to the Taoiseach, he responded for 20 minutes yesterday. I have mentioned five of the promises he made in the past ten years.

What about the 100 Deputy Kenny did not deliver on?

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern. Will the Taoiseach tell me, man to man, whether any of those five promises, on which he really would like to have delivered, keeps him awake at night? Will he answer this in the House before we hear the de Róiste judgment at the weekend?

I will try to reply to the Deputy's questions in the order in which he asked them, although I know he was meant to ask only one question.

On prisons, we have reformed the prison system and built new prisons.

And closed a few.

No, we got away from the revolving door that existed when the Deputy's party was last in government——

He escaped.

——when nobody served his time and when prisons were just holiday camps. Offenders were imprisoned for just a few days and then let out again; that is the way it was.

There were 3,000 early releases last year.

Allow the Taoiseach to reply without interruption.

On class sizes, we have employed 8,000 extra teachers in primary schools since 1997 and the pupil-teacher ratio is now down to 27:1 or 28:1. There has been an enormous improvement in respect of disadvantaged children and the class size in this respect is 13 in secondary school. This is as good as any international standard.

We have the second largest class sizes in Europe.

What about primary schools?

A considerable number of primary schools have under 20 per class.

There are many with over 35.

There is one teacher for every 28 pupils.

The voting machines——

They are safely stored.

——worked quite well in the last election — they worked excellently. Fine Gael is afraid of them and wants to return to paper and pencils. Even though we are a country of technology, Fine Gael would rather go back to the old way — a haon, a dó, a trí and use the pencils. Ireland is the largest exporter of technology and everybody is using it with their bank cards, etc. Fine Gael wants us to use pens and peann luaidhes again. That is its policy and if we keep going in that direction we will all be unemployed again.

We could use them as ATMs.

We might be unemployed——

Allow the Taoiseach to reply without interruption.

Which one did I miss?

The M50.

The whole lot.

Was it the 600,000 extra jobs or was it delivering our tax policies? Was it bringing almost full employment to the country or having the best economy in the world?

Hospitals.

What about the waiting lists?

Waiting lists.

Was it cutting the national debt to 25%?

Hold it now——

The Taoiseach to continue without interruption.

Deputy Ring should leave Deputy Kenny alone in Mayo and not be hassling him.

Sometimes the Taoiseach is fallible also. I will take his points in the order in which he made them.

What did he say?

Allow Deputy Kenny to speak without interruption.

The Taoiseach said he ended the revolving door and sorted out all the business concerning crime and justice. Last year 470 prisoners were released early from Cork jail to make way for new inmates. Is this not an indication that the revolving door is still alive and well? There are 110,000 children in classes of 30 or more, despite the Taoiseach's assertion that the pupil-teacher ratio is now reduced to 28:1. It took some pressure from this side of the House to force a change within the Department of Education and Science to provide language support teachers in the numbers required.

The Taoiseach said the electronic voting machines worked "quite well". The population is waiting to dispatch this Government with their "peann luaidhes" when they get the opportunity. I remind the Taoiseach of Deputy Cullen's statement that the money is absolutely secure and that the machines will be used. I suppose the Taoiseach will get up at the weekend and say they will be used some other time.

They will be used. Deputy Kenny wanted to use on-line voting.

Where will they be used?

The Minister, Deputy Cullen, should hang his head in shame.

Voters can play with them as they are stuck on the M50.

They will not be used in the lifetime of the next Government.

The €750 million car park that is the M50 and the port tunnel were blocked this morning, causing chaos for hundreds of thousands of commuters. The virtual metro is supposed to be in operation this year.

There were 40,000 operations cancelled and 29,000 people are waiting to see a consultant. Why must four out of five patients wait at least 12 weeks to see a consultant or have endoscopy investigations carried out? I pointed out yesterday the seriousness of the situation where a GP in Kildare said the system had effectively killed a patient and a consultant in Tralee said that patients die while on the waiting list for endoscopy investigations. I pointed out what is happening in hospital after hospital.

After making those five promises, do any of them keep the Taoiseach awake at night? If he could go back over the past ten years, given the economic strength brought about by the workers of Ireland, which of them would he deliver on? Will the Taoiseach admit that his much vaunted promises have ended in failure? He promised a lot but there is still a lot to be done.

I was going to say that Deputy O'Connor's posters caused the rumpus on the M50 this morning but obviously that is not the case.

It was not the millions the Deputy spent on posters.

I have answered the issue of prisoners. We had a major problem with early releases but now we do not have that problem — the statistics and facts back that up.

There were 3,000 early releases last year.

I know Deputy Kenny admitted last week that if he has the opportunity he will do away with remission for prisoners. I do not know if the Labour Party would support that if it is ever with him in government, but prisoners will note that remission for ordinary prisoners will be taken away if Deputy Kenny has an opportunity to do so.

They will vote for Fianna Fáil.

On class size, there are almost 5,000 more primary school teachers than in 2002 and 8,000 more teachers. Class sizes have reduced dramatically, with the average primary class size falling to 24. With the unprecedented increases in support staff, there is now one teacher for every 17 primary school children, down from one for every 22.

We have the second largest class sizes in Europe.

There are 10,000 children in classes of more than 40.

Children who need extra help are getting more support than ever before and the majority of extra teachers hired have been targeted, rightly, to provide extra support for children with special needs, those in disadvantaged areas and those who need help with their English. Not only have these additional teachers made an immeasurable difference in the lives of all these children, they provide vital back-up in the classrooms. The policies we have implemented have helped, with more than 1,200 extra teachers in primary schools in the past few years.

At second level, there is now one teacher for every 13 students. That is a considerable reduction on the figure in 1997. Those are the facts.

There are 100,000 children in classes of 30 or more.

As I said yesterday, as in every health service in the world, there are clearly some difficulties in some areas of health, although not in a large proportion of areas. I acknowledge what has been achieved: a 7% increase in day care cases to over 590,000, an increase in outpatient attendances to more than 2.766 million, over 1.2 million attendances at accident and emergency departments and substantially reduced waiting times. Treatment is provided for 150,000 cancer patients and treatment is provided for 17,000 inpatients and appointments have been arranged for 9,000 outpatients under the National Treatment Purchase Fund.

People must wait four months for essential cancer treatment.

There are 780,000 extra home care hours, bringing the total to 11.8 million, additional home care packages and additional day care packages. Every day there are new announcements and new movements helping the health service.

Is that the Taoiseach's speech for this weekend?

Deputy Kenny asked about the voting machines. I must remind him that he promised not alone that we would have voting machines——

Machines that would work.

His party wants to go back to pencils——

Peann luaidhe.

Peann luaidhe, which he does not believe in and is ridiculous. He promised at University College Galway that he would bring in voting on the Internet. That is what he said.

No, I did not.

His party wants pencils. I wanted voting machines and he wanted to use the Internet so he should not accuse me.

It is a broken down system from a broken down Government.

I can confirm that those voting machines will not be used in the lifetime of our Government.

Deputy Kenny had his chance so he should sit down. I admit in the national Parliament today that there was a delay on the M50. A van ran into a truck so I am very sorry that it disrupted people.

The Taoiseach was not driving.

I was not driving.

The Taoiseach does not have a licence.

It shows the huge success of the tunnel in only a few months that as soon as there was a delay everything happened. I was waiting since Christmas to see what day would the Opposition stand up, but it had to wait, because it is a huge success, another massive part of the planning infrastructure of the Government.

It can only carry 12,000 cars a day at full capacity.

Because a van ran into a truck, the only thing the Opposition can raise in the national Parliament is that a van ran into a truck.

What make was the truck?

The M50 is the largest car park in Europe.

I remind Members of the House that it is Leaders' Questions and only the leaders of the parties are entitled to submit a question and a member of the Government responds. I ask Members to behave in some reasonable manner so the Member submitting the question and the Taoiseach replying can do so in silence.