John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am replying on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney. I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for giving me this opportunity to outline what provision is being made in the Ballyphehane-Togher area of Cork. I would also like to take this opportunity to speak about the community welfare service in general.

With regard to the sudden absence of a community welfare officer in the Ballyphehane-Togher area of Cork, I am informed by the HSE that this relates to the fact that there was no clinic held in that area on Monday last, 4 May 2009. As the Deputy highlighted, this absence could not have been anticipated as the member of staff responsible for this area was suddenly taken ill. The situation was compounded by the fact that a large number of possible replacement staff were also unavailable. Obviously this was an unfortunate set of circumstances but not one that could have been foreseen. As a result, I am informed it was decided by local management that it would not be possible to hold the clinic on that day. While this unfortunately has caused inconvenience to clients who were hoping to meet with the community welfare officer, the cancellation of the clinic was unavoidable in the circumstances.

In order to address the pressures on the community welfare service in Cork, a process is under way with the staff and their trade unions to implement a revised arrangement to meet the current service need. This process has been undertaken in a partnership process and will be finalised over the coming week to ten days.

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