Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. When we refer to Deputy Lowry and he talks about understandings, we know what he is talking about - it is an inside track, in terms of getting things done. The Taoiseach said clearly that Deputy Lowry does not have an inside track and, essentially, without the Taoiseach actually saying it, it is being suggested that Deputy Lowry is fibbing and not telling it as it is. He does not have the kind of deal or understanding that he has let on he has with the Government. That is essentially what the Taoiseach is saying. He is dismissing his assertion that he has such an understanding.

When Deputy Lowry talks about an understanding with the Fine Gael Party and Ministers, he is not talking about walking along a corridor. Let us not be naive, we all know full well what he means by those words. In the aftermath of the last Dáil discussions, he was emphatic when he said he did not have a deal but rather an understanding with the Government and is happy with that. That is not passing along a corridor and the Taoiseach should not dismiss it as such.

I refer to the comments of the Taoiseach on the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, and the deal on the catheterization labaratory, on which he feels he was shortchanged. It is worth pointing out that I understand why he feels he might have been shortchanged. We need to remember that clinicians were involved in the configuration report. They recommended splitting the service, whereby Kilkenny and Wexford would go to Dublin and Waterford would be attached to Cork. That was an unprecedented proposal, because Waterford was always the centrepiece of the south east. In the configuration report there was an expectation that there would be a second catheterization labaratory, but the reality is that what was recommended by clinicians in the report was not implemented. The commitments made to Waterford in the context of the configurational report were not fulfilled.

I accept that the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, did a deal in good faith, but he has a case. In the heat of the discussions there is no doubt he was promised this would happen and that the review would be just a formality. If one read the configuration report, one would find that the likelihood was that the recommendations would be followed through. I accept the advice of different clinicians and specialties in terms of the commentary, but nonetheless there is a sense that Waterford was shortchanged by the configurations and that the commitments made in the configuration report were not fulfilled.

Clinicians outside, not in, Waterford have said this to me. They believe that part of the issue is the degree to which the service in Waterford was not given the level of support it was promised in the original configuration report and recommendations which led to the break up of the south-east model and the attachment of services in Wexford and Kilkenny to St. James's Hospital and services in Waterford to services in Cork. That is why the Minister of State with responsibility for training and skills, Deputy John Halligan, was of the view that Fine Gael had broken his deal and that the Ministers, Deputies Simon Coveney and Michael Noonan, had not fulfilled their side of the agreement reached with him.

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