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

The craziest statement a Minister for Health ever made was made by the current incumbent in the recent past. He said he wants to build more hospitals. He said he wants to make more beds available and that he will have to build more hospitals. I want to reinforce my argument. The Minister should come down to Kerry and we will show him the hospitals that are completely under-utilised. We have excellent people working in excellent hospitals but they are not being used to their maximum capacity.

I am trying to introduce a new consultant to Kerry University Hospital in Tralee, County Kerry. It is ridiculous when we have an excellent surgeon who wants to perform procedures every week but is not allowed to do so. As my brother, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, highlighted, Kenmare Community Hospital, one of the finest hospitals in all of Ireland, is completely underutilised. Instead of using Dingle Community Hospital for beds, which is what it was meant to be used for, offices were put into it. It is disgraceful. Elderly people from the Dingle Peninsula do not want to be in Killarney, Tralee or Kenmare. They are Dingle people and want to stay in their local community. Nobody can blame them for that.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this important motion before the House this evening and for highlighting this matter. We must talk about the underutilisation of our services. Yesterday, again, I had to explain to a person in chronic pain who needed a knee operation the procedure of introducing them to a hospital in Belfast for that operation and how, when they come back, the Minister will give them the money for that treatment, meaning it will not cost them a penny. Does it make sense that the Minister will give a person the money to have a procedure done in a hospital in Belfast while, at the same time, it cannot be done in the South? It does not make sense.

The Minister has myriad managers and people below him. Will he get them to cop on and use the brains God gave them? They are supposed to be intelligent, with billions of euro at their disposal, but they are making a fine mess of it again. Does the Minister want to go down the same road as other Ministers and be dubbed as yet another person who could not make a hand of it? We expect better of the Minister. He has the opportunity and resources. Will he please use them properly?

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