The Fine Gael spokeswoman on health, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said that the mishandling of the SARS controversy was one symptom of the many problems confronting the health services.
There were "savage across-the-board cutbacks, the public health doctors' strike, bed closures, job losses and growing queues for all services," she added.
"If Minister Martin were a new minister in a fledgling government, he might be given the benefit of the doubt," she said, "but he is not a new minister. He and his Government have had six long years and all the money in the world to make their own luck. They have squandered the money."
Ms Mitchell was opening a debate on a Fine Gael Private Members' motion critical of the Government's performance on the health services. The House will vote on the motion today.
She said there was now a major crisis of confidence in the health services, "caused not just by the grossly inadequate, confused and confusing handling of the SARS threat, but by the daily onslaught of media stories telling us of ever more frightening and ever more heartbreaking failures".
The Labour spokeswoman on health, Ms Liz McManus, said it was time for Mr Martin to go.
"A fresh start is needed and a new Minister for Health would be a good first step," she said,"but this Government as a whole has to accept the blame for the failure to tackle the issues surrounding the good, fair and efficient provision of healthcare to those who need it." She criticised the Department's "shambolic approach" to the SARS threat.
Mr Martin said his Department had moved immediately to respond to the SARS threat.
"Medical staff from my Department, in collaboration with the NDSC, spent the St Patrick's weekend making the appropriate international contact and literature searches to fully assess these factors and, having done so, put in place the initial comprehensive public information and professional guidance which has been the basis for our approach to this issue since."
