Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much agree that the maternity ward in Portlaoise hospital needs a capital investment. This will be discussed with the master of the Coombe and others in the next while. The unit in Portlaoise is probably about 30 to 50 years old. However, Deputies should bear in mind that there are other hospitals, both paediatric and maternity, that are 200 years to 300 years old. Unfortunately, we need to prioritise which need investment first.

The potential impact of any changes on Naas, Tullamore and Tallaght is fully understood. We have seen reconfiguration without adequate provision in other regions in the past. In the north east enormous pressure was put on Drogheda, while in the mid-west it was Limerick that bore the brunt. That was done by the last Government and I do not intend to repeat it. It was right to do the reconfiguring, but the central hospitals should have been properly resourced too.

What I cannot do is give absolute commitments. No honest politician can and nobody should trust a politician who goes around making absolute commitments about the future because we cannot predict it. What if it turns out that we cannot hire senior staff to work an emergency department at night? It will not be possible in ten or 15 years to be staffing emergency departments at night with locum doctors with poor English and no emergency training. That might have been fine ten years ago, and we might even get away with it now. However, that is not the kind of health service we want in ten years’ time. We have to know we can staff it with senior staff.

We also have to ensure we can indemnify it. What if the State Claims Agency were to remove indemnification? Will we then ask patients to sign a waiver before they go in at night to say they will not sue if anything goes wrong? Anyone making these kind of cast-iron promises for the future is just not an honest person. I was disappointed to hear Deputy Sean Fleming make those kind of undertakings. Will he tell the people of Laois if he has discussed this with his party leader, Deputy Martin, and whether Fianna Fáil will stand over that commitment as a party? It should be borne in mind that Deputy Martin, one of the most senior politicians in Cork and a Minister in the last Government, was in power when the number of 24-7 emergency departments in County Cork was reduced from five to two. That was done in his county and he stood over it. He was right to do so. Can Deputy Fleming be sincere about his commitments when his party leader did the exact opposite in his own county?

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