Health service developments debate
Senator Harte seeks a Health Minister debate on hospital and primary-care developments, defending projects in Wexford, Kilkenny and Letterkenny while criticising the previous Government’s treatment of Donegal; interruptions challenge and defend the request.
I would also welcome it if the Minister for Health were to come into the House to discuss developments in primary care and hospital care. Letterkenny General Hospital opened a new accident and emergency unit recently and there was no political trumpet blaring because the previous Government and this Government were instrumental in delivering that. Fianna Fáil should be very careful about criticising developments in the health service.
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Can we not ask for an explanation?
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When Senator Darragh O'Brien's Government was in power and his party's current leader was Minister for Health, the health service in Donegal was run down to the degree that-----
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Why can we not ask for an explanation-----
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I will come in and ask the Senator if it is okay to ask certain questions and he can improve them. Is that what he is saying?
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Senator O'Brien, can we hear Senator Harte without interruption? Has Senator Harte a question for the Leader?
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I ask that the Minister be invited to come into the House to discuss developments. The health service in the north west and in Donegal was decimated during the good times. Members should remember this was not at a time when there were cuts. Some 15,000 people took to the streets of Letterkenny campaigning for cancer services and the then Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government had to be dragged to the table to even discuss it. The people in Donegal took matters into their own hands. This happened in years when there was spending but Donegal was ignored by Senator Darragh O'Brien's current leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, when he was Minister and we all know he issued 140 or 150 reports which are still lying in the Department. The question on this should put to the former Minister, Deputy Martin.
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I ask that the Minister come into the House to outline future developments. I congratulate the hospitals in Wexford and Kilkenny on this and if it was good news for Donegal I would be congratulating the work because it is about delivering the service.
No matter where a development took place, the Opposition parties would have criticised it. If that is the best they can do, they should try harder because it is not impressive.
