Dr. Gerard Burke:

With regard to Deputy Conway's comments on Waterford, her clients in Waterford are probably in a better position than many clients in Dublin because the patients in Waterford with cardiac disease will be delivered in a hospital with an intensive care unit and a coronary care unit. I discussed this matter with Professor Fionnuala McAuliffe earlier in the week with regard to a patient I delivered on Wednesday at the regional hospital with cardiac disease. There was no point sending the patient to Holles Street because they would have to bring her to St. Vincent's Hospital. This is a resource issue. This is the Joint Committee on Health and Children and it behoves members to do something about the state of maternity services. It could be solved quite easily and we could build four new maternity hospitals relatively cheaply if we issued a new tranche of the national solidarity bond and called it maternity bonds. It would solve the problem for relatively little investment.