Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister's colleagues, Deputies Brendan Smith and Jimmy Devins, and commend and congratulate them on their respective appointments and wish them the very best in their areas of responsibility. I am sorry to say I cannot give the same welcome to the Minister with the health portfolio because her approach to health care and the needs of our people do not meet at all.

Does the Minister accept that the board of Tallaght Hospital maintains that the loss of its paediatric services would be in breach of the charter which established the hospital and which was passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas? Does she also accept that it would clearly be in breach of a personal promise, made by the Taoiseach in 2006, to the leaders of the various Protestant denominations who are represented on the board? Does the Minister further agree that, given the growth in population in south Dublin and Leinster, served by Tallaght Hospital, the loss of paediatric services would present an unacceptable danger whereby the safety, wellbeing and perhaps even the lives of young children would be put at risk?

Finally, does the Minister agree it was a disgrace for the HSE effectively to threaten the board of Tallaght Hospital that if it did not accept a co-location private hospital on its site it would not receive funding for the additional public hospital beds it required?

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