Even though the Taoiseach has been telling people Deputy McCreevy craved the job, the people of Kildare have not yet got the message that his version of the story is correct. However, I wish Deputy McCreevy well in his new position.
The Taoiseach did not need to hear from 25 or 30 backbenchers about what he needed to do in that regard: he should not have used backbenchers to facilitate his getting rid of a man who did a very good job for the economy. While I may not have agreed with him at all times, I agreed with the general trend of what he was trying to achieve for the country, in particular our enterprise economy.
We were promised a radical reshuffle but what we got was a minimal reshuffle. Ministers have been shuffled rather than reshuffled with the addition of a few new faces to replace former Ministers, Deputies Smith, Walsh and McCreevy. Deputy Walsh served as Minister for Agriculture and Food for a long time and did a good job. He should have been shuffled a long time ago rather than reshuffled now. Had he been shuffled to another Department some time ago it would have helped his career. Deputy Michael Smith served with distinction for many years as Minister for Defence and I wish him and his family well in the future.
The ministerial appointments announced illustrate that the former Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, is unique. I am sure he survived efforts to have him removed from the Cabinet for trying to reform public transport services. I know he encountered many difficulties with some of the trade unions and semi-State companies on more than one occasion during the past two years. Perhaps the Taoiseach went behind his back on a number of occasions in an effort to tidy up matters with the trade unions. Nevertheless the principle of opening up air and bus transport services to competition is the way forward. Competition is always good for the consumer. The vote of no confidence in Deputy Brennan — albeit he remains a member of the Cabinet — is notable in the context of the decisions made today.
I congratulate the Tanáiste in her new role as Minister for Health and Children and thank her, as Opposition spokesperson on enterprise, trade and employment, for the kindness and courtesy she extended to me in the work we have undertaken together since my taking up this position two years ago. I wish her well in that Ministry. Luck is something she will need given the legacy left to her by her predecessor.
The Tanáiste triggered this reshuffle last Christmas by indicating she wished to move having spent seven years at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The gestation period to today's announcement has been long and not good for the country. People, particularly Ministers, are often paralysed by thoughts relating to where they might end up in a reshuffle. The Taoiseach is responsible for the long period of procrastination.
Luck will also be in demand if the Tanáiste's record at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is anything to go by. She inherited a growing economy, a growing labour force and a business sector with growing confidence. While she can look back on a solid performance on the economic and enterprise fronts, unfortunately, she leaves the Department under the shadow of rip-off Ireland with a sorry lack of competition in a range of areas from the professions to the insurance sector. She has presided over a drastic reduction in our competitiveness in recent years.
The Tanáiste may be an ideal candidate for the job as Minister for Health and Children. I hope she will not follow in the footsteps of her predecessor who commissioned report after report and sought consultation after consultation resulting in empathy, sympathy and no action. The consumer council has metamorphosed into the consumer strategy group much to the delight of rip-off merchants around the country given the lack of action which followed. We are always one step away from making a decision that will mean something to consumers and from dealing with matters in a similar fashion to that of the Ombudsman which sets out how and where the consumer can be assisted and seek redress. I hope the new Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, will take action in the interest of consumers, something the former Minister did not do.
I acknowledge the Tanáiste's remarks about the Motor Insurance Advisory Board's recommendations, 80% of which have been implemented. While motor insurance prices have stabilised, we have yet to see benefits in the area of employer's and public liability insurance. I was delighted to provide cross-party support for the establishment of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board to deal with small claims and provide opportunities to reduce the cost of processing claims. I acknowledge that the board has yet to undertake the type of work which will provide us with the opportunity to establish whether there is a measurable reduction in insurance costs. However, I welcome the fact that we are heading in the right direction in that regard.
The Tanáiste has allowed the Government to become the godfather of rip-off Ireland. Responsibile for the entire CPI figure in recent years, the Government has implemented 30 stealth taxes since its election. While we might have reduced personal income taxes, we have paid for it by loading indirect stealth taxes on to the business sector and consumers. The forthcoming budget provides the new Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen — whom I congratulate and wish well — with an opportunity to do something to ensure we will not continue along the slippery slope into a worse position than that of 30th in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness rankings.
Taxpayers have contributed vast amounts of money for the provision of increased resources for the health service. It would be nice to think that all of this money was invested wisely and productively on behalf of the taxpayer and the users of the services to which the Tanáiste referred. If money could solve the problem, it would have been solved a long time ago. Sadly, this is not the case and responsibility for many of the ongoing problems in the health service can be laid fairly and squarely at the door of outgoing Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin. Just as we have highlighted the need to end the rip-off culture in the commercial world, we must also deal with the ineffectiveness and poor value for money achieved in respect of some of the expenditure in the health service.
The former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, has been making good news announcements to beat the band in the last two weeks. There has been a rehash of statements issued 18 months ago on breast cancer facilities, although such facilities in the southern and western regions have not yet opened. There has been the announcement of the provision of another €85 million for the opening of a string of new health faciilties worth up to €400 million that have been lying idle for a number of years. Sadly, his desperate attempt to give himself glowing references for his new job not only highlights two scandalous issues in the health service — access to cancer services depending on where one lives and the number of expensive health facilities lying vacant while thousands suffer on waiting lists — but reveals the consistent pattern of the Cabinet's work style: promise it, announce it, provide some of it, announce it again and again raising false hopes and giving the impression one is making progress but rarely delivering the goods.
I remind the Tanáiste of the scale of the task awaiting her in trying to sort out the mess in the heatlh service she has now inherited. The national health strategy and primary care strategy published in 2001 before the last general election remain to be implemented. The three health reform reports, the Prospectus, Hanly and Brennan reports, all published in 2003 remain to be implemented with the only reform so far being an even more bureaucratic and less accountable structure worsened by the added threat of the closure of accident and emergency departments. The radiotherapy report completed in 2003 also remains to be published.
Worst of all, the Tanáiste inherits a string of broken promises and has responsibility for restoring trust in the Department after so many false hopes were dashed once the election was out of the way in 2002. The Government was re-elected on a platform which included promises to eliminate waiting lists by 2004; extend medical card eligibility to 200,000 extra people; take 26,000 patients off public hospital waiting lists within two years; provide 3,000 extra beds, a network of primary care centres, community facilities for the elderly and improve accident and emergency services with senior doctors available at all times. The reality and the vista before the Tanáiste is an indictment of the Government and her predecessor. Unless she does something drastic, it will be an indictiment of her also.
More than 46,000 medical cards were withdrawn in the past two years. Since the Government took office in 1997, 93,353 have been wiped off the medical card list. Waiting lists were not eliminated in May 2004. We have not been given figures since then as the Minister is trying to find out how many are on the list following consultation with the NTPF. As envelopes are heaped on desks in hospitals which have not been processed, we do not know the extent of such waiting lists. It is a deliberate attempt by the Department of Health and Children to conceal the true extent of the problem. Instead of providing new beds, some 192 beds in the Eastern Regional Health Authority area were closed in 2003.
We were promised 709 beds in acute hospitals before the end of 2002 but that deadline passed 21 months ago and only 589 are in place. The Government promised an investment of €1 billion over ten years but only €16 million has been spent on the primary care strategy. Three years after the publication of that strategy, the Department is still examining ten pilot projects. We were told recently that the much needed funding for primary care is now being withheld until 2007. Community services for the elderly are rationed, particularly home help facilities. Those who are forced into nursing homes owing to inadequate community services find it difficult to keep up payments and there is no adequate inspection of nursing homes to ensure their safety.
Our accident and emergency services are in crisis, with overcrowding and significant numbers on trolleys, even at traditionally quiet times of the year. Fianna Fáil's plans for such services will leave small hospitals with no accident and emergency departments, forcing many to travel longer distances for medical attention.
On every difficult issue, on every occasion when chaos reigned, Deputy Martin, the former Minister for Health and Children, empathised and sympathised but produced no action or solution. Commitments were made on blood transfusion services. Despite the publication of the Finlay report on the former Blood Transfusion Service Board seven and a half years ago, important issues remain to be addressed without which the reform process will not be complete. There were inordinate and unacceptable delays in notifying more than 24 donors, including Donor L, of the date of discovery of their infection with hepatitis C. Information I received under the Freedom of Information Act showed that there was internal dissent and contradiction between professionals when the board's decision to contact affected donors was attempted.
We also know that more than two years ago, the outgoing Minister agreed with Positive Action, Transfusion Positive and the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, IBTS, to put in place an independent investigation to discover why this delay occurred. The process has run into the sand and we wonder why. Perhaps the fact that the new Minister is not a native of Cork will assist her in cutting through the political knot that has been created and which led to the resignation of the chairperson and other board members of the former BTSB in 2001. It is a mess that must be sorted out sooner rather than later so that patients and donors can have confidence in the blood transfusion system.
There are many parents and family members who have had to face again their grief at the loss of a child when they discovered that their child's organs had been retained or used without their knowledge or consent. The Dunne inquiry has not yet reported and there are many unanswered questions surrounding this issue which must be speedily and comprehensively addressed. Again, the former Minister made many promises but he did not deliver. Allowing this issue to fester only increases the pain for those people.
We received indications over the summer from the silence of the lambs on the Fianna Fáil backbenches that the Taoiseach would carry out a radical reshuffle. We have witnessed a minimal reshuffle with the normal cautious approach of the Taoiseach of treading slowly and carefully in these matters. There is a system of promotion in his mind that has stood the test of time today, with those who were expecting promotion being disappointed at both senior and junior level. This reshuffle was a political damp squib.