Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure what the Taoiseach did not understand about what I said. First, the Taoiseach had time to visit a private hospital in Galway before Christmas. Second, the Minister has failed to attend in Galway. Third, this issue is not about what I want. Let me cite the Saolta group again because this is what the management in Galway wants. It states that the ageing facilities at UHG are "not fit for purpose". We have crisis after crisis, and scandal after scandal. I am not interested in going into the details of those, but I am appealing to the Taoiseach. I do not believe what he is telling me. Neither he nor the Fine Gael Government has a grasp of the situation in Galway city, which represents a population of 1 million people. We are at crisis point. This situation is causing deaths and leading to ill health.

All I am asking the Taoiseach to do is to hear what I am saying as a mouthpiece for the clinical director, consultants and medical staff, who say that we are at crisis point. I did not quote the Taoiseach. I quoted from this independent report on the accident and emergency department and the scandalous, unsafe and dangerous situation pertaining. If the Taoiseach can nod to those words and yet read from that prepared script, there is something wrong with "new politics".

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