I put on the record how sad I was to hear about Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's death this morning. He was an extraordinary musician, a brilliant teacher and an outstanding composer, and he is a great loss to us because he was able to make Irish music like Mozart's music. It is a tremendous loss to the university, his postgraduate students and musical composition in Ireland. We sometimes forget when the great artists or musicians die. They do not fill the pages in the same way that politicians or others do. He is a great loss to all of his students, the arts community and music in Ireland generally. May he rest in peace.

What was said in the Lower House about hospitals and hospital staff by the powers that be was not good. It lacked perception from our leaders to speak like that and I concur with what Senator Devine said about this. People are sitting in here who have worked in the area of health.

I heard the former Senator, John Crown, on the radio and people at the coalface are talking about the fact that we do not have enough staff. It is all very well to ask people to come in at weekends and on evenings handling machines but there is not enough staff.

That is not true.

It is true and they will not fill the vacancies.

We can go through all of the policy areas on the future of work but if we do not have enough staff to run our hospitals and keep them open at weekends, I do not know what we are thinking about. We are obfuscating policy for practical application. It was the most unperceptive remark on people who are meant to be running this country. The queues for beds are enough reason to reflect on this. Are we not listening to the people who are waiting for all kinds of medical checks?

Health and education are the most important departments and if we cannot get them right, nothing else will be right, so I would like for the Minister for Health to come in and explain to me what is going on and how he will fix it. He should bring in staff and not have our doctors who are paid for by the taxpayer running out of the country, followed by our nurses who are not able to come back to the country because they are not paid properly and have nowhere to live. It is an outrage.

The Senator has gone one minute over time.

To think that the powers that be in the Lower House do not have the perception to know the problem-----

The Senator has made her point.