Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I am very much in favour of the amendment. The debate on co-location should take place in the House. If there is no consultation and debate, how can one arrive at a conclusion? I was very glad to put a question down last week that finally established that co-location is not proceeding at University College Hospital, Galway, not because the Minister did not want to proceed with it, but simply because nobody in the public sector would take on the co-location project there.

The location of some of these projects was crazy. One could not park a bicycle at University College Hospital, Galway at the moment. People come from all over the western region and they must queue up along the road to get in there. Therefore, if these problems were debated in the House, people with local knowledge of the situation in the various areas would be able to tease it out in this House. The amendment is sensible because it states that all of those matters should be discussed in the Dáil before they begin.

See this speech in context