Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Kenmare and Dingle community hospitals are only half open. Deer Lodge, a 40-bed mental health facility on St. Margaret's Road, was completed two years ago. Why have its doors not opened yet? I ask the Minister for Health to demand from the HSE that the facility be opened forthwith. It was completed two years ago and it is not fair to people with mental health problems that they are not allowed to use it. The St. Mary of the Angels home is a wonderful facility that is being shut down by stealth because no new patients are being admitted. This is not fair on those who were dealt a bad hand and are being prevented from using the facility.

The decongregation model will have to be reviewed because one size does not fit all, as I have told the Minister previously. My blood boils when I hear the Minister say people can be moved from these facilities into the community. I know a person who was born 45 or 46 years ago and who is crumpled up in a little ball, cannot see, walk, talk or move his hands or legs. If the Minister is suggesting that this person can be moved into the community, he is away with the fairies. I ask him to review the decongregation model. People with physical and mental disabilities are not receiving enough help and assistance. Their parents have been dealt a hard hand and I ask the Minister to do more for them.

The people of Kerry have been denied proper infrastructure for years. Surely the Macroom bypass project will proceed now that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Creed, is to remain in place. I ask him to put his shoulder to the wheel because if he does not-----

See this speech in context