I am sure the Taoiseach will recall his billboards from the last general election on which he declared he would end the scandal of patients on trolleys.

I fast forward to 30 June of this year when in a new form of government by e-mail the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, e-mailed the chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive and said we are losing the battle, any thoughts? We move forward to more choreography, more leaked e-mails, where the Minister is now saying to his officials heads will roll, and a senior head will have to roll-----

They will be on the trolleys.

-----if this is not fixed. Then the CEO of the HSE is put in charge of the task force. Why he was not put in all along I do not know. Strangely, he has been put in from now until March, presumably to take care of the election for the Government and to try to deal with this issue during the electoral period.

The real cynicism at the heart of the Minister’s position is that when he became Minister he was given a briefing. He was told what would happen back in summer 2014 if action was not taken immediately in terms of delayed discharges, resources for the fair deal scheme, and not the possibility or probability, but the certainty that there would be a crisis in accident and emergency departments during that winter if action was not taken. He ignored that advice. He now wants heads to roll. He wants the heads of people whose advice he and his predecessor, Deputy James Reilly, have consistently ignored in respect of health matters.

We remember the CEO of Beaumont Hospital who said that the accident and emergency department was unsafe. The Government’s tactic then was to undermine the people making these comments. There is fear in the health sector. People are afraid to speak their minds, lest the Government get them. I recall the CEOs of the maternity hospitals and how they were dealt with because they put their heads above the parapet saying the situation in the maternity services was appalling. Their salaries were leaked by Government to undermine their position and as a signal to everybody else to keep quiet and not to embarrass the Government about the health services. It has its own way of sorting things out.

The waiting lists have gone through the roof, as have waiting times and the number of patients on trolleys. There are 400,000 on the outpatient lists. The Taoiseach got rid of Deputy Reilly and said that he was taking charge two years ago but he appointed Deputy Varadkar as Minister for Health. Will he accept that we are now witnessing appalling cynicism from the Government and from the Minister, in respect of his stewardship of the health service, as we head into a general election campaign?

No I do not, actually.

The Taoiseach does not get it so.

What I see is, for the first time, a Minister for Health saying we have to have accountability for taxpayers’ money and the services we run, I am not happy with the way things are being run, I need people to step up to the mark and take responsibility, unlike what happened in Deputy Martin’s time-----

Including himself.

-----when he denied publicly that he had ever been given any responsibility. The Minister is quite entitled to say he is not happy with the situation he finds in some services that we run and he needs people to be able to accept responsibility for the charges they have been given. It has been a trying time. There was a modest increase in the health budget last year despite the fact that new beds were opened and €70 million extra was allocated but it did not deal completely with the situation in so far as waiting lists were concerned. That is unsatisfactory. Today, however, and over the next few years, it has been possible to allocate €3 billion in respect of hospital and health capital facilities. It is a warning from the Minister for Health that he is not content to have a situation in which year after year a budget is agreed and that, year after year, it is not met. It is not possible to meet it in all circumstances. Many of the services are severely challenged, given what went on in years gone by.

Far from being a cynical exercise, I think it is realistic to expect from any Minister for Health that there is not a bottomless pit of money from the taxpayers to deal with any situation. While the health service is primary in people’s view, with an overrun every year for the past 30 years, perhaps it is time the Minister signalled that he will require that accountability and responsibility be accepted by those who are in those positions.

The accountability should be with the Minister and with the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach said four and a half years ago he would end the scandal of people waiting on trolleys. He said that. There was a supplementary budget of €680 million last year. What is that saying? That speaks to the dishonesty at the heart of the Government’s approach to the health service, consistently, deliberately falsifying the health budget every year to suit its own budgetary figures, allowing no planning, ignoring all the advice. When Deputy Varadkar became Minister for Health he was told that Deputy Reilly’s reform proposals were unworkable. The Taoiseach has some neck. Look at his programme for Government. He should read the eight pages on the health service. It is complete fantasy.

Deputy Martin has some neck.

The Government has wasted health officials’ time for the past three years going on about universal health insurance. It should read what it said:

This Government will introduce Universal Health Insurance with equal access to care for all. Under this system there will be no discrimination between patients on the grounds of income or insurance status. The two-tier system of unequal access to hospital care will end.

I could go on, paragraph after paragraph, not a single bit of it implemented. Things have got much worse. It is debacle after debacle, and the Minister, and the Government have the neck at the end of their term in office, when they had no blueprint coming in, when their reform proposals were pie in the sky with no substance or depth to say that they will do a Martin Callinan on it, they will do a Fennelly on it: when all else fails, to save our political hide we are going to sack people, we are going to sack civil servants; that will look good; that is good public relations. The Taoiseach can ask Deputy Reilly and Deputy Shatter and the former Garda Commissioner. That is what we have been reduced to because of the Government's appalling abject failure in terms of delivery of its own health care policies.

It is remarkable the Deputy was not as vocal in government.

Deputy Martin is the champion of false anger.

Absolutely.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach will meet the anger if he goes out on the streets. They are waiting in the grass.

If I recall correctly the Minister for Health back in 2002 was one Deputy Micheál Martin.

Amnesia.

He proclaimed to the nation and internationally that he would end and abolish waiting lists. He had a plan to do it. He still has a plan to do it.

No, no. We implemented incredible reductions in waiting times.

He comes in here floundering around in desperation. His party, with a few notable exceptions, has not come up with a constructive suggestion in the past four and a half years. He started his period in opposition-----

Bring back the national treatment purchase fund.

-----saying he would work in the interests of the country-----

This Government abolished it.

-----but what he has been at here, week after week and month after month-----

-----is holding the Taoiseach to account but he does not like it.

-----is typical of somebody who has no vision of where his party should be or where his country should be.

The Taoiseach should change the record.

What he has given out there in that diatribe does not warrant a response.

It is the Taoiseach's plan. The Taoiseach should read it.

I would invite anybody to read the eight pages of the Government's programme for Government.

Is it any wonder the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy, is so arrogant?