Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

In line with A Vision for Change, such acute services must be provided locally. Service users in south Tipperary have been seeking a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, for some time. Will she inform us when it will take place?

I also ask the Minister to indicate when the Shanker report on St. Michael's acute unit in South Tipperary General Hospital will be published. My Oireachtas Member colleagues and I were told in March of this year that it would be published within a month. It was not. I raised the matter again at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children in July of this year. I have correspondence from a senior national director of the Health Service Executive who told me it would be published on 23 July. It still has not been published. I met senior HSE personnel yesterday in south Tipperary and again asked if it has been published but it has not and we have not been given a date for the publication of the report. I ask the Minister to tell us when replying when that report will be published.

I accept the A Vision for Change policy and that community based services are the future of the mental health services but I am adamant that the small number of inpatient acute beds that are necessary under A Vision for Change should be provided locally in St. Michael's acute unit in South Tipperary General Hospital.

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