Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

With the permission of the House, I wish to share time with Deputies Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Seán Sherlock. The problem with this matter is one of trust. The Minister put forward a fine, spirited argument in this House about why what she was doing was what she felt to be right, but the whole system is predicated on services being in place in the Mid-Western Regional Hospital and in the community that are not in place. When I asked the Minister when the critical care unit would be available in that hospital she was not able to tell me. She is well able to tell us when surgical activities and night time accident and emergency services will be closed in Ennis and Nenagh, but not when the facilities that are meant to be in place, and which the Teamwork report says are a predicate to the changes, will be in place. It is a problem of trust. Unfortunately, there is no trust in the mid-west that the reconfiguration plan will be anything other than a money saving exercise which will hurt patients.

I listened to Deputy Crawford earlier in the debate. I respect him very much. He does not exaggerate but is a very responsible Deputy. He said 17 people in Monaghan may not have died if what happened in the north east had not happened.

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