Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat arís, a Theachta. The Deputy makes a sensible, practical and reasonable argument on all fronts. I believe it is accepted across the House that that is the future. While we are grappling with so many issues in the health service, here is a solution. The role of Deputy Pearse Doherty and others in the House is to refocus, and that is what is missing here. We must refocus the energies and the efforts to utilise this space and, as the Deputy said, it is not just for the women, the children and the fathers of these children into the future. It is also for the well-being and health of the general population of Donegal - nothing to do with maternity services - because it will increase the throughput in the rest of Letterkenny General Hospital and allow many more procedures to be done and eliminate the waiting lists on which we spend so much time beating ourselves up over politically in this House in terms of trying to get to the bottom of them. It is eminently sensible. It is something that can be achieved. I thank the Deputy for raising it in the House as it affords us, as politicians, an opportunity to get our officials to go back to the HSE and work with the Saolta group to try to refocus efforts to get this commissioned and utilised today or sooner rather than later.

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