On the Order Paper is No. 143, a motion regarding acute psychiatric services in the west of Ireland. Can the Taoiseach facilitate a debate on this issue and will he agree to putting a stay on plans to spend €13 million at University Hospital Galway to replace a state-of-the-art acute psychiatric facility already commissioned in Ballinasloe, which is costing €3.1 million?

That sounds like a parliamentary question to me.

There was a public meeting in Ballinasloe at the weekend at which people were extremely angry about the wanton waste of public moneys in closing a state-of-the-art facility to build a new facility on top of a car park in Galway.

The matter is one for discussion on Private Members' Business in the Seanad. Deputy Naughten is aware of the Vision for Change document setting out the view on how psychiatric conditions should be dealt with for the future. I am aware of the situation in Ballinasloe in both St. Brigid's Hospital and Portiuncula Hospital. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, is dealing with this area. There are patients in St. Brigid's in a new unit, as yet unopened, who are supposed to be in the unit which is deemed to be closed, with the transfer of patients to Galway. There are implications for Portiuncula and Roscommon. I am not sure which entity Deputy Naughten favours and whether he wants them both kept open in the context in which they were built.

We want to keep an eye on Castlebar too.

We will not discuss that at the moment.

The Vision for Change document is accepted by all as the right way to go. It is a case of not losing focus on the patients, who should be the central feature of all concerns here - both the younger psychiatric patients and elderly people with a psychiatric condition.