Same to you Mary Harney!

"Balbriggan Sinn Féin representative Fergus Byrne has called on the Taoiseach to sack the Minister for Health & Children and to dump the policies which she has pursued after the numbers of patients on trolleys in overcrowded hospital A&E units reached a record number of 500 on Wednesday.

Byrne stated:
“The crisis in our over-crowded hospital A&E departments is now worse than ever. Long forgotten by Minister Harney is her declaration of a ‘national emergency’ when there were actually fewer patients on trolleys than there were on Wednesday.

“As this crisis deepens the HSE is actually proposing to reduce the number of acute hospital beds by a further 1,100 in its plan for 2010. If 500 patients are on trolleys with the existing acute hospital bed shortage how many will there be under the HSE plan? 1,000? 2,000?

“The Taoiseach should sack the totally discredited Health Minister Mary Harney and he should dump the health policies which she has pursued on behalf of a succession of Fianna Fáil-led governments. This is not to in any way lessen the responsibility of all the members of those Governments for health care chaos, but to emphasise that a dramatic change in direction must be brought about.”