Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be kind to the Mr. Mulvany and ask the following. I have two issues. One is home help, which I have touched on. My colleague, Deputy Billy Kelleher, would have received the detailed letter from Mr. Ray Mitchell in the past few days. We asked for the home helps by region per month in 2016 and for the figures available for 2017, and we got the figures for January and February of 2017. We just received it last week. That showed that in the two-month period of January and February of 2017, as compared to January and February 2016, there was a reduction of 50,019 home help hours nationally. Laois-Offaly saw a reduction of 15,383 hours. Thirty per cent of the entire cut happened in that region. I ask Mr. Mulvany to provide a detailed note on what happened. I do not expect him to know it here now. It does not include the home care packages. It is strictly home help hours. Mr. Mitchell will be familiar with the letter that was issued to Deputy Billy Kelleher recently.

The last thing I will ask Mr. Mulvany is to send me a detailed note on where we are on the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. At the minute, something is on the Minister's desk on the accident and emergency unit. We know progress has been made on the maternity unit. There was major concern regarding the ongoing uncertainty about the accident and emergency. I ask him to send us a note. I am not asking Mr. Mulvany to say anything special here now.

I think we are done. On behalf of myself and my absent colleagues who were here earlier today, I thank all the witnesses from the HSE, the Department of Health and the Comptroller and Auditor General for their attendance and the material supplied today. As Chairman, I agree to dispose of the 2015 and 2016 accounts and financial statements of the HSE. We have now disposed of them, but we still expect to receive the information we requested.