Page "Mary Harney" Paragraph 13

In March 2006, 16 months after she took office as health minister, the INO claimed that a record number of 455 people were waiting on hospital trolleys on one day ( although the Health Service Executive gave a figure of 363 people waiting on hospital trolleys for the same day ).

In June 2006, the Health Consumer Powerhouse ranked the Irish health service as the second least " consumer-friendly " in the European Union and Switzerland, coming 25th out of 26 countries, ahead of Lithuania.

However, in the same survey conducted a year later, the Irish health service showed significant improvement, coming 16th out of 29 countries.

Ireland even scored higher than Britain's NHS which came 17th in the survey.