Does the Taoiseach recall his notorious five-point plan?

Notorious?

Yes. It promised a new health system. It promised to eliminate long waiting lists, the two-tier health system, trolley waits and to introduce a universal health insurance scheme - fair care. Sinn Féin warned that this would not work, as did other parties and independent health experts, but the Taoiseach would not listen. This morning, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, in a car crash interview said that instead of a concrete plan for health, the Government has a vision. The people languishing on trolleys this morning do not need a vision; they need a solution. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, like the Taoiseach, offers no solution. He asserted that the universal health insurance scheme remains the Government's preferred model, as the Taoiseach has repeated. This is clearly due to Fine Gael's ideological position which favours the interests of private health insurance companies over the interests of patients and their families. This is a for-profit position. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, insists that he is merely shelving this proposition. He then went on to say that it would not happen in the next Dáil if, God forbid, the Government is re-elected. He says it might be done in the following Government's term.

Universal health care based on health needs, not on wealth, paid for by direct taxation and free at the point of delivery is the only fair and viable model to deliver the rights of citizens through a truly public health service. Will the Taoiseach take the opportunity this morning to rule out, once and for all, his unfair, for-profit model which patently has been taken off the agenda by the Minister for Health?

Deputy Adams has raised perfectly legitimate questions on health over the years in this Chamber. Many of those questions relate to the inefficiency of a two-tier health system. The Government's view and commitment is to end the two-tier health system, and its commitment is to have a funding model through universal health insurance to pay for that. The Government put forward a particular model of universal health insurance and it commissioned the ESRI to conduct a report on it. That report was prepared and was received by the Government. It sets out the ESRI's analysis of the funding costs and the implications of that for families, insurance and the health system in general. I could argue about elements of transaction, unmet needs or margins in respect of insurance companies, but I confirm that the Government will not proceed with that model of universal health insurance as funding for universal health care.

The Fine Gael model.

The Deputy's and other Deputies' constituents are entitled to a universal health care system that delivers medical attention based on their medical needs-----

When will they get it?

-----as distinct from their salaries, incomes or what they have in their pockets. The way to do that is to put in place all of the building blocks required to restructure a health system that clearly has inefficiencies. There have been problems in respect of medical cards, the fair deal, waiting lists, trolleys and particular cases that arise from time to time.

That has nothing to do with the model.

The Government has moved on reform in respect of children under six years of age and people over 70, removing children from the Department of Health by creating the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, dealing with the stabilisation of the private health insurance market and in many other areas where good things are happening throughout the health system. Clearly, however, there are serious challenges ahead and the Government remains committed to the path of reform, through the implementation of reforms and ending the two-tier health system, and the funding of that through an appropriate, but different, universal health insurance model.

In the dying days of the Government, the Taoiseach has eventually confessed that he has abandoned the scheme he favoured. Let us consider the other promises the Taoiseach has broken. The programme for Government committed to free GP care for all, an end to prescription charges, introducing universal health insurance and the abolition of the HSE. None of this has happened, and none of it will happen. Does the Taoiseach not agree that in the transparent, open and accountable democratic revolution he promised, such abject failure should be a resigning matter? His flagship health policy has collapsed. Will the Taoiseach resign on this issue?

Is Deputy Adams thinking about that himself?

The Taoiseach promised to provide a modern, fair and accessible health service, but he has failed miserably to do that. In 2013, the former Minister, Deputy James Reilly, said we will never again see 569 people on trolleys on a single day while the Government is in office. The Taoiseach made the same promise. Last month, there were record numbers of patients on trolleys, many of them elderly. The Government is responsible for a health service in complete chaos. Is it not time to admit that the five-point plan was a five-point sham? The truth is the Government has no plan, no solutions and now does not even have the pretence of a policy on health.

I am not sure who the Deputy's poet is, but he could do better than that. The Deputy asks me to resign every couple of months.

The Taoiseach will eventually.

I presume Deputy Adams is trying to drive his point home.

In fairness, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, did too.

Where is he?

In the spring of 2016 I will leave this chair, go to Áras an Uachtaráin and ask the President to dissolve the Dáil. I will be happy to contest throughout the country on the mandate the people gave us to fix our public finances and to put the country back to work.

Will the Taoiseach do a couple of live debates around the country?

I do not know if Deputy Adams has met any parents of children under six years of age.

It will be a tall order in Roscommon.

It is a fallacy.

Is this the fellow with the two pints?

Quiet, please.

They say the introduction of free GP care is a very good thing for their children, as they do not have to pay at the point of access. People over 70 years of age will tell the Deputy the same. The Government has committed that the next stage is to give free GP access to all the children of working families. Some of them might be covered by medical cards already. Clearly, the Deputy does not think that is a good idea, nor does he appear to think that building 45 primary care centres, with others under construction, is a good thing either.

Is universal health care as a right in a so-called republic a good idea?

Perhaps Deputy Adams does not have any concept of what good community care means. He does not appear to appreciate that patients who are able to live at home and have quality home care packages is a good thing. He also does not appear to like the fact that waiting times for the fair deal are now down from 18 weeks to four weeks-----

The Government put it up to 14 weeks.

-----which is a very manageable and fair system.

What we have tried to do is implement a series of measures-----

They failed miserably.

-----in a very challenging position when we inherited the economic mess that the other crowd left us with-----

If his five-point plan was implemented, we would see where we are.

-----to produce a health system that will end the two-tier system and will have universal health care for everybody, so Deputy Adams will not have to go to America the next time he requires this.