Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I have carefully studied the Minister's amendment to the United Left Alliance motion on our health services and what I conclude immediately is that language in the mouths of the Government ceases to have the meaning that words and sentences should have and apparently means the opposite. The Minister calls on the Dáil to support the Government's policy of developing the role of smaller hospitals to their full potential rather than closing or downgrading them. We do not have time to go around the whole country but let us go to one or two areas of the country, for example, the north east, where he said he would protect and develop small hospitals, after the serious downgrading of Monaghan General, Louth County, Navan Hospital-----

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