Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)

As my colleague, Deputy Ó Caoláin, has dealt comprehensively with the State-wide picture, I intend, as a Deputy representing Donegal North-East, to focus my comments on its local hospital, Letterkenny General Hospital. The Minister will be aware that not long ago 15,000 people gathered together in a county that previously had not been renowned for massive public protest. They gathered in the pouring rain to seek equality in cancer care, to ask for services to be upgraded in the region and for the full spectrum of cancer care services to be provided. That campaign was led by women who had moved to County Donegal from Scotland, Belfast and Monaghan. Through their personal experiences and determination, they inspired thousands of others and their campaign has been successful.

People in County Donegal thought this would be the beginning of a new dawn for health care services in the county. They thought that at last the long neglected needs of the people living in the county and region would begin to be addressed comprehensively. However, to their horror, they have watched the debacle over the extension to Letterkenny General Hospital unravel into a farce. The building company which was awarded the contract, McNamara Construction Limited, was closed down by NAMA, as in turn were the subcontractors who had carried out the work in the hospital. Most importantly, the people who had waited so long for proper and adequate accident and emergency facilities and modern facilities in the wards in the floors above were let down.

The aforementioned project will have been delayed by one year, but even when it comes on-stream, cutbacks in the HSE mean wards in the existing hospital building will be closed and not a single additional new bed in the three-storey building will have been created. This constitutes a damning indictment of how health services are run. While it is bad enough that people were obliged to wait another year, after decades of waiting for proper facilities, on its completion it will only offer a nicer environment in which to work but no new capacity. The impact of this development is that patients are to be found on trolleys in the accident and emergency unit there on a regular basis and no doubt the position will not change when the new building finally comes on-stream.

The impact of the cutbacks and the impossible budgetary demands placed on staff of the hospital results in outpatient clinics and elective surgery being cancelled regularly. There is ongoing suspension of elective surgery. People who are crippled with - mostly elderly persons - have to wait long periods for basic operations. Consultants are paid huge salaries, yet they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. As they have said this publicly, they do not need me to say it. It is ridiculous.

Because of the failure to appoint junior doctors, the continuation of the 24-hour accident and emergency service at Letterkenny General Hospital is under real threat. We await clarification as to when junior doctors will be appointed and what is envisaged as a permanent solution. There has been a downgrading of critical services in the hospital, in comparison to hospitals serving much smaller areas. The morale of the often heroic staff on the front line is being sapped. They do not know what to do with themselves as a result of the pressure and the impossible demands being imposed on them by the system.

The motion implores the Minister and his colleagues who campaigned for change and appealed to the real desire of the people for a new beginning after the crisis we have endured to do the right thing. It appeals to the Minister to find the resources to honour the commitments made, not to neglect regions of the State which have been neglected for far too long. It also appeals to him to give the people the health service they deserve and for which they pay taxes.

See this speech in context