Some 150 children attend Mullingar regional hospital for diabetes treatment. It covers counties Offaly, Longford, Westmeath and surrounding areas. The weekly clinic and nurse on-call service are now gone. That is critical. I have spoken to parents with babies aged from two or three months to six months old. These are children who are not talking yet and cannot tell their parents how they are. Chaos is ensuing. This is a dangerous situation. I ask the Taoiseach to go to the Minister for Health today to get this resolved because I am very fearful of what will happen with that service being withdrawn and not being fulfilled for those parents. Alarms are going off at night every two hours for some parents trying to balance their children's blood sugars. Will the Taoiseach speak to the Minister today to get this issue resolved for those parents?

Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice: One hundred and fifty children 03:29 attend Mullingar regional hospital ??/ for diabtetes. It covers Offaly, Longford, Westmeath and surrounding areas. The weekly clinic and the nurse on call service are now gone. That is criticfal for the simple reason.. i spoke to parents, especially with babies from two, three to six months, children that are not talking yet and cannot tell their parents how they are. Chaos is ensuing. this is a dangerous situatoin. I ask the Taoiseach to go to the Minister for Health today to get this resolved because I would be very fearful of what will happen with that service being withdrawn and not being fulfilled for thos eparents. Alarms are going off at night every two hours for some parents tryinhg to balacne their chidlren's blood sugars. I ask the Taoiseach if he will immediately today speak to thte Minister to get thsi issue resolved for those parents.

I will, and I have because this is an important issue. There is a scarcity of specialist-trained paediatric nursing staff. This has posed significant challenges to the continuity of paediatric services at the regional hospital in Mullingar in recent years. My understanding is that the hospital has maintained the provision of existing services catering to more than 12,000 children. I think there is some positive news on this matter. An interim plan was discussed with the clinical lead at a meeting last week. Hospital management has provided a commitment to finalise a solution to address the long-term staffing-----

There is no clinic today.

-----needs - hang on one second - and avoid any impact on paediatric diabetes patients and their families. I will keep a close eye on this. I will talk directly to the Minister for Health and come back to Deputy Fitzmaurice directly.