Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

This is probably worse than we had thought. I accept the Taoiseach's apology to the family of the deceased person. It should not be necessary for him to have to do this but I am glad he did because of the blatant failure of HSE management to deal with it properly. One can understand the hurt caused.

The HSE website states "welcome to northeast health.ie". It goes on to say that the HSE is working in the north east to develop the most modern, integrated, safe, patient-focused service that has ever been devised in this country and it will be based around one new regional hospital. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, said on 14 June 2006 that the Teamwork management services report and the report by Judge Maureen Harding Clark on Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital conclude that the five local hospitals where acute services are provided are not up to standard and that we want to build best international practice supported by a new regional hospital. This apparently has become a phantom entity if we take what the Taoiseach has said here today. He is right to say that designated hospitals within the region should have a service built up that is commensurate with best standards. One can understand the complete frustration of people in that region when the Minister, Deputy Harney, the Government and Professor Drumm have created a pointless crisis where services have been being stripped away from Monaghan and from other hospitals in the locality on the basis that the extra services would be provided in the new regional entity.

Cavan Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda are bursting at the seams. The medical personnel at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital told me that its section dealing with children is on the edge and lives with pressure every day because of the extent of the work taking place there and the lack of facilities. The Taoiseach has not said whether this was in the national development programme. The Tánaiste said in 2006 that we would have a new regional hospital. We are going to provide international best standard in a new regional hospital. What is in store for the existing five hospitals in the north east? What extra services will be built up in Cavan Hospital and in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda? What services will remain in Dundalk, Monaghan and Navan hospitals? Even if authorisation was given for this to go ahead today, it is a ten or 15 years project and could cost up to €1 billion. What has happened is a pointless crisis. Professor Drumm said this morning that the HSE is entitled to strip out services on the basis that people had an expectation that a regional entity would deal with all of these facilities for the times ahead. Was this new regional hospital ever in the national development programme? Will the Taoiseach publish a list of the capital projects that will go ahead under the national development programme and a list of those that will not go ahead? Can I take it that the commitment of Government and the Ministers for Finance and Health and Children is to ensure that the existing hospitals will have services allocated to them developed to the highest standard? Will he confirm whether the Government intends to go ahead with the regional hospital for the north east which has been the cause of so much angst, frustration and concern for medics, people and patients alike?

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