Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I am glad the Minister is here and I welcome that valuable change in a health debate. I also welcome the fact that Deputy O'Rourke pointed out the Minister's failure to control spending on the HSE. The Minister is in control and must take responsibility. The original motion did not include the new cutbacks in Monaghan Hospital. The reopening of two reconstructed wards at a cost of approximately €5 million should have been a good news story for the people of Monaghan, but the Government and the HSE have introduced further cutbacks. The HSE says it only involves a cutback of ten to 12 beds, from what was available during the refurbishment process whereas, in fact, it means that a modern, recently upgraded 25-bed ward is being decommissioned. Ten years ago there were over 140 beds in Monaghan General Hospital with a full service. What is being done to the consultants and staff of the hospital through simple e-mails from the backroom boys is completely unacceptable. There was no forewarning or prior discussion and clearly no care for patients and their families.

The Fianna Fáil-led Government promised so much just weeks before the election, not just for Ennis and other hospitals but also a new ENT, ear, nose and throat, service for Monaghan. While I welcome my colleague Deputy Conlon's contribution, she failed to mention the fact that the service she offered people before the election is now gone.

The Minister of State, Deputy Smith, and his colleagues who represent the Cavan-Monaghan area, should realise what is being done in the name of progress and what is clearly planned. We all have a duty to take political responsibility on behalf of those we represent, rather than simply handing over patients' lives to advisers from a failed British system.

The last time Monaghan General Hospital was off call, up to 17 lives were lost because people were not allowed through the door. Mr. McCullough, who lived only 500 yd. away, was refused admission to the hospital where he would have obtained relief and care. He died on the way to Cavan. Perhaps the Minister can meet the people in the Gallery tonight. They have travelled from Monaghan and now expect their public representatives to stand together and fight for hospital services there.

In Scotland, which is only now seeking independence, they are building new local hospitals rather than dismantling high quality buildings containing beds and theatres, which is wanton waste. How can any Minister stand over the fact that patients who should be dealt with in the Cavan-Monaghan hospital structure are either going through the VHI or the National Treatment Purchase Fund to private hospitals in Mullingar and Galway? They will be dealt with by the same personnel who left the Cavan-Monaghan hospital system because of the then health board management's failure to deal with them.

The situation in Monaghan General Hospital is dire. For my colleagues on the Government benches to have said that there would be no changes and that the service would be retained was not true, to put it mildly.

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