Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Yes, the competition is very tough.

In 2002, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, who was then Minister for Health and Children, entered into a commitment with the National Rehabilitation Hospital that if the hospital sold nine acres of land to an adjoining company, a new national rehabilitation hospital would be built. Every Member of the House is familiar with this hospital. It is where people go after car accidents or with acquired brain injury. Everybody speaks very highly of it. I stood in that hospital yesterday, in a 19-bed ward of mixed genders that had two open bathrooms at the end of the ward. It was from the 19th century. I talked with the people there about the need to build a new hospital. They went to tender at the end of 2008 and accepted a tender at the beginning of 2009. They are still waiting.

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