Denis Naughten (Longford-Roscommon, Fine Gael)

The Bill allows for the implementation of the Hanly report. For the Minister of State to suggest that the Bill has nothing to do with the report is disingenuous. The Royal College of Physicians has a regulation that was due to be implemented on 1 July 2003 but allowed a stay of execution for 12 months. It will be introduced on 1 July 2004. It will mean that the 24 hour accident and emergency service in Mallow, Bantry and Roscommon hospitals will cease from that date.

The European working time directive will come into force on 1 August 2004 and the reality is that the recommendations of the Hanly report in the Mid-Western Health Board and Dublin will be replicated in the country by the end of the summer and start in the smaller hospitals, for example, the county hospital in Roscommon.

The chief executive officers will be given blank cheques which the Taoiseach had a habit of issuing but a blank cheque is being issued without democratic accountability and allowing them to implement the Hanly report on the basis that if they offend the Minister, they will not have a position under the new structures to be established in the new year. The report will be implemented before these new structures are put in place next year and it is disingenuous of the Minister of State to say the opposite.

See this speech in context