Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Another said in a statement to a newspaper in reference to the increase in births to non-nationals that "the projected number of non-nationals giving birth in Dublin is sufficient to warrant a fourth maternity hospital in the city". I have received numerous complaints from people in Limerick, Clare and Tipperary about similar pressures on maternity services in the mid-west. On 11 April, The Sunday Times quoted Dr. Michael Geary, the master of the Rotunda Hospital as saying "the concern I have is over women boarding flights from the UK or, indeed, France or Holland, when they start their contractions. It is a very worrying situation and there have been some near-miss maternal mortalities. Some women have severe medical problems so just the fact that they are in labour on a plane results in complications". These are the people who subsequently tried to imply they were entirely neutral and had no view on the subject at all. They are rather peculiar statements of neutrality.

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