I was somewhat inspired when I heard the interplay between the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Senators on various issues, including the national anthem. I kept thinking that perhaps we should entitle today's proceedings "Civil War: The Musical".

On a very serious note, it is probably a well known fact at this stage that I am unlikely to run for election to this House again. In reflecting on the five years I have been a Member, the single, greatest and most colossal disappointment I have had, which in a five-year timeframe is a microcosm of the disappointment I have felt over the 22 years since I came back to Ireland, has been our complete failure to address the structural problems in the health service. When one hears something like we have heard in the past 24 hours, that in the second largest city in the country, in what is either the largest or second largest acute hospital in the country, all elective surgery has been cancelled - I know I am speaking to an audience who, from the medical and health profession point of view, are largely a lay audience - this is abnormal as abnormal gets. This is unprecedented. This is mad. This is nuts. This is crazy. This is the greatest illustration one could possibly have of a system that has failed. It is not a Third World health system. I will not use emotional language. I have seen Third World hospitals. We do not have a Third World health system. We have a First World health system but one that is strictly third class and mediocre. There has been a complete, absolute and utter failure of all attempts to reform it.

I endorsed the Government, although I am sure my ringing endorsement had nothing to do with it being elected, and I endorsed the potential coalition partners in three consecutive elections because in each of them they stated they would reform the health service when my colleagues in Fianna Fáil had a different plan and wanted to redevelop the existing structure, with which I respectfully disagreed because I thought plan B was much better - to break up the health service and start from scratch.

There was colossal disappointment on hearing, about two thirds of the way through the current Oireachtas, that they had basically given up on that plan.

I apologise if I sound like a broken record, but people need to think about the sheer abnormality of having all the elective surgery in a major hospital cancelled. It is crazy. One can talk about the slippery roads in Cork last Friday and people falling on the Mardyke and all of that, but the system should be able to absorb that activity. Other systems absorb occurrences of multi-vehicle car crashes and terrible epidemics. The situation is simply wrong and it is not just in Cork. It is very close to happening in other hospitals in the State. I have walked through the emergency department of St. Vincent's University Hospital on a number of occasions in recent months and sometimes wonder how it would pass a fire inspection, never mind a health inspection. One sees people having to move one trolley to move between them to get to the next patient. I ask that when all the Members are back in the House in the next term they think about this situation.

In the past five years a number of Bills have been advanced in this House and been allowed to remain on the Order Paper. As they are not Government-sponsored Bills, they will die. I feel strongly about this. When Members propose these Bills without pushing them, it becomes an optical exercise. I ask the Deputy Leader to designate several hours some day next week which may be our last sitting week in order that we may at least go through the formalities and, if the Government does not accept these Bills, reject them. I ask the Deputy Leader to allow No. 55, Longer Healthy Living Bill, which everyone to whom I have spoken thinks is really progressive which could go some way towards fixing many problems in the health service and the wider public service to proceed some time next week in order that it would have the opportunity to be accepted or rejected.

The Senator is out of time.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that the Minister for Health come to the House to discuss the emergency in Cork.