Potentially, we are heading into perhaps the last week of this House. The date has been in the Taoiseach's head for quite a long time. I merely want to commend the Taoiseach and the Government on their capacity for self-assessment. The prospect of the chapter in the programme for Government dealing with fairness, in particular, in dealing with the health service, will rank as probably the greatest act of political fiction ever written. It is tremendous stuff.

Deputy Martin should know all about that.

Five years ago, the following was stated in the programme for Government:

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.

The Universal Health Insurance system will be designed according to the European principle of social solidarity: access will be according to need and payment will be according to ability to pay. The principle of social solidarity will underpin all relevant legislation.

As a statutory system of health insurance, guaranteed by the State, the Universal Health Insurance system will not be subject to European or national competition law.

This Government will act speedily to reduce costs in the delivery of both public and private health care and in the administration of the health care system.

I will not read out the entire chapter on the health service but it goes on. The Government promised legislation for universal primary care under legislation to be called the universal primary care Act. Are the heads of the Bill available? It was to be brought in. The claimants of drugs on the long-term illness scheme, at a cost of €17 million, was to be introduced. It read very well.

I did not think the Deputy read reports.

It states:

A system of Universal Health Insurance (UHI) will be introduced by 2016, with the legislative and organisational groundwork for the system complete within this Government’s term of office. UHI will provide guaranteed access to care for all in public and private hospitals on the same basis as the privately-insured have now.

There is another full page on the universal health insurance Act, which is promised in the programme for Government, and on how hospitals and clinics will participate in supplying care under UHI, and so on. On the third page about UHI it states, "Under UHI public hospitals will no longer be managed by the HSE."

Where are we going?

We are rambling.

This is on promised legislation.

It is the programme for Government.

It is a fair point, a Cheann Comhairle. This is all promised legislation, which never arrived.

It never came, like many of the Government's promises.

The Deputy's Government promised it ten years ago.

I do not need your assistance thank you, Deputy Durkan.

I apologise. I just cannot bear this nonsense.

Would the Taoiseach agree that it is a great work of fiction and that none of the legislation has arrived?

The Deputy is very familiar with fiction.

For five years, I have been asking for these Acts periodically. Up to approximately three months ago, the Taoiseach kept saying there were delays but they were coming. Only in the past three months has the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, ditched the entire chapter on universal health insurance. Will the Taoiseach confirm that he misled the people on it five years ago and that it has been a spectacular failure of implementation? Can he confirm that it belongs, and has always belonged, to the realm of fantasy in terms of political commitments and promises and creates serious doubt about any commitments he makes in health or any other area? What the Taoiseach said about health did not materialise.

The Deputy should know about that.

No research or homework was put into the universal health insurance project.

This is like a Second Stage speech.

We were told it would happen. The pathways are detailed on the fifth page, starting with the enactment of the legislative basis for UHI. It did not happen, and I do not know why. Maybe the Taoiseach can give some indication. Can he confirm that it is unlikely to happen, given that we are, potentially, in the last week of the Dáil?

The Taoiseach attempted to introduce self assessment for the junior certificate. There was much objection by teachers. In the Taoiseach's self assessment of his record, he gave himself 93%. I begin to understand why the teachers have concerns about self assessment.

Where are we going?

If all our schools had a similar pattern of self assessment, it would reduce our education system to ridicule. I have a far greater understanding of teachers' concerns about self assessment, given the Taoiseach and Tánaiste's self assessments.

Can the Taoiseach indicate how the report of the banking inquiry will be laid before the House and the arrangements for statements?

I always like to facilitate the Chief Whip in briefing the Taoiseach.

The Deputy is so nice.

He is a decent guy. Regarding taxation-----

You are getting a great run. There are other Deputies here.

I appreciate it. I am nearly finished. Can the Taoiseach clarify when the taxation and certain other matters (international mutual assistance) Bill will be published and whether it will allow for an extension of the maximum period of four years over which a taxpayer can reclaim any amounts he or she has overpaid to the Revenue?

The Deputy read out sections of the programme for Government. I have been upfront about it. There are areas on which we have not been able to deliver, including universal health insurance. The Deputy asked why. Given the total collapse of the economy, there were no resources to drive any of the programmes to the extent one would wish. The Dutch health insurance system was not appropriate in Ireland's case, and we always made this point. The Minister has made it very clear that we have not been able to introduce universal health insurance, but the priority remains to introduce universal health care, which will be paid for by an insurance scheme. It will be introduced at the end of the lifetime of the next Administration.

It is hardly credible that the Taoiseach would say that.

It is not hard to credit. At that stage, there will be a universal health care system based on primary and community care and home care packages and on an increased capacity to invest in hospitals, medical personnel such as consultants, doctors and nurses, and other public services such as the Garda. Templemore was closed for some reason, which the Deputy might explain some time.

Why did the Government leave it closed for three and a half years?

These are all reasons it is critical the momentum of growth pattern the country is on must be kept up to provide the resources to invest in all those public services. I will come back to the Deputy on the tax issue he raised.

The Chief Whip will move a motion tomorrow for the publication of the report of the banking inquiry. On Thursday morning, there will be an opportunity to debate it here, starting with contributions from the Chairman of the inquiry, Deputy Ciarán Lynch, and the members of the inquiry. They have laboured long and hard during the past 12 months in dealing with various elements of the inquiry.