asked the Minister for Health when consultants will be appointed to Carlow Maternity Hospital.

Consultant obstetrician/gynaecologists from the General Hospital, Kilkenny hold a weekly outpatient clinic in the Maternity Hospital, Carlow.

The South-Eastern Health Board are developing St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, to provide consultant obstetric, paediatric, gynaecological, medical and surgical services, together with consultant radiological and pathological services for a catchment area which includes County Carlow. As part of this development a 14-bed extension to the maternity unit in St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, was opened in May 1981 and a further 14- bed extension to the medical unit is at an advanced state of planning.

The board have asked me to meet a deputation in regard to maternity services in Carlow and I am arranging to do so.

The Minister is very well aware, from representations which have been made to her from the Carlow Urban Council, Carlow County Council, the consultative health committee and the South Eastern Health Board, that mothers in County Carlow, which is a county with its own unit, are not satisfied with the new——

A question, please, Deputy.

——25 bed maternity unit which was built there — and opened, incidentally, by the former leader of the Labour Party who was then Minister for Health, Deputy Corish, and indeed, visited by the present Ceann Comhairle who agreed that the new maternity unit only opened in 1975 is now not being availed of and in Kilkenny the patients are on the corridors.

A question, please, Deputy. That is not relevant.

Relevant or not, why do we not provide consultative services for Carlow maternity hospital to look after the problems there?

I have received representations as the Deputy has said. The health board considered this at a meeting as recently as 8 October. They asked me, following that meeting, to receive a deputation. I will see and listen to the deputation and make up my mind on the case which they make. That meeting should be satisfactory.

May I ask one further supplementary question? The present Taoiseach when he visited Carlow during the election campaign visited this new maternity hospital. He promised the Carlow people that it would be a matter of urgency with the new Government, if he were leader of it, to provide these services in Carlow. Nothing has been done about it and the reason the Minister is now meeting the health board representatives next Tuesday is due to a question put down by me in September.

A question, please, Deputy.

The Minister has not said whether she will accept the fact that this new 25 bed hospital should have consultative services. There is no point in expecting a mother in Carlow——

A question, please, Deputy, not a statement.

——to go 25 miles to Kilkenny. Is the Minister going to appoint consultants for Carlow?

I am to meet a deputation as a result of a request from Deputy Pattison. I had no information at that time that a question had been put down on the Order Paper in relation to Carlow. I will listen to what the deputation have to say and treat the matter as sympathetically as I can. I cannot say any more at this stage.