Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Oireachtas representatives in the mid west have attended several meetings, rallies and protests in respect of the ongoing situation with public hospitals and, in particular, the overcrowding and emergency department problems at UHL. I am grateful for the interventions being made by the Minister, including investment, enhancements and recruitment. If he does not mind me saying so, he is cleaning up a legacy mess that arose through many years. I ask him to comment on the 2009 decision, which predates our involvement in national politics. I hope that gives him a certain latitude to comment on a decision over which he did not preside. The 2009 decision was to reconfigure the public hospitals in the mid west by downgrading Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's hospitals and creating a centre of excellence at the Dooradoyle hospital. That centre of excellence has never materialised. It is an insult to patients and staff that the term "centre of excellence" keeps getting bandied about. As I have stated many times in the Dáil, it would have been incredible a couple of years later to say we are striving towards it but we are now 14 years on from that decision, and I do not think that politically, clinically, medically or by means of any other metric or lens we can say it has been a success or has worked. It has been nothing short of a failure. It was a mistake. I would love to hear the views of the Minister in that regard. We will discuss some of the many improvements he is making but we have to admit that the 2009 decision was the problem that led us to the situation in which we are still wallowing.