Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I listened to the Taoiseach today when he was trying to explain what has gone wrong with the health service. Many of the matters of which he spoke are not the services that I have grown to accept in the part of the world from which I come, but that is not the message I want to get across.

Many aspects of the health service are extraordinarily wrong but they are not highlighted as they should be. I speak about an area of the country that the Minister knows well. I refer to the services centred in the Ballinasloe health centre. Does the Minister realise that almost 2,000 children throughout the country have been denied ophthalmic services? The Ballinasloe health centre serves an area stretching from Creggs on the Roscommon border to Derrybrien near Gort. The consultant in this area retired a number of years ago and was never replaced. In addition, there is no area medical officer. The person who held that position has gone on to greater things and was not replaced.

I wish to refer to the provision of audiology and orthodontic services for children in schools. The Minister will be aware that under the Health Act a guarantee was given to every child under 16 years of age, irrespective of his or her parents' incomes, that he or she would be looked after at school level in terms of the provision of those services. That did not happen and it is not happening. That is nothing short of a disgrace.

I have often heard the Minister and Professor Brendan Drumm talk about the necessity to ensure that treatments are available at the earliest possible time and I agree. Will the Minister agree that it is important for a child with an eyesight problem to have it rectified when he or she is a child? One can imagine the problems a child would face in later years if he or she did not receive treatment? These services are not being provided in the Ballinasloe health centre. It is a disgrace that the failure to do so is silently being brushed under the carpet.

The Minister spoke of what has happened in terms of cancer care services and I do not have time to address that in regard to Ballinasloe. We all know what is happening. Unfortunately for the people of Ballinasloe, the cancer care services in place are being removed for the reasons outlined by the Minister. Everybody in the area is talking about the centre of excellence in Galway. That is an excellent centre but when I tried to visit a patient there last Monday I could not get in because there was a traffic jam for half a mile around the centre.

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