Dáil debates

Wednesday, 7 December 2005

7:00 pm

Photo of Finian McGrathFinian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)

This could easily have resulted in the loss of life. This is the type of health service to which the people of Clare are subjected.

My colleague, Deputy Connolly, has informed me that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has recently recommended that Monaghan General Hospital be deprived of all acute surgical services and that such services be based in Cavan instead. This recommendation ignores and flies in the face of recent unanimously expressed demands of all the local consultant surgeons at both Cavan and Monaghan hospitals that Monaghan General Hospital be restored to full acute surgical on-call status. Deputy Connolly has also called for the Monaghan General Hospital to be restored to full on-call status for both surgical and medical emergencies since Cavan General Hospital has as many as 30 patients on trolleys, often for lengthy periods. Deputy Connolly has insisted repeatedly that the people of Monaghan have a basic right to acute hospital services convenient to home rather than the current Russian roulette practice of shuttling people between Monaghan and Cavan on poor quality, twisting and bumpy country roads.

I welcome any extra investment in child care but I remind Deputies that it is the Independent Deputy, Catherine Murphy, who put child care on the political agenda during the by-election in Kildare North, and I commend her on that. She has demanded that a portion of child care facilities built in large residential developments be handed over to local authorities as a condition of planning permission being granted. Her intention is that local authorities would involve non-profit community groups in running multi-use child care facilities to cut down on the cost of child care provision while continuing to provide a high level of service in a child-centred environment.

According to Deputy Murphy, Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 has yielded a disappointing number of housing units, with financial settlements being made to local authorities in lieu of the development of social and affordable housing, so her suggested provision would offer a viable alternative. Community-run child care facilities are few and far between because purpose-built accommodation is only available at commercial rents, which makes it an unrealistic proposition. Should such facilities be transferred to the local authority, a lease arrangement to qualifying groups would open up key community supports that would be community-run and community-based. Once again, I commend Deputy Catherine Murphy on highlighting this issue.

A sum of €1,000 was given to families today for child care. That would not even provide a place in many of the services in Dublin——

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