Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To take an example, the rehabilitation unit in Merlin Park University Hospital was stopped. Patients were transferred to the private hospital. Inexplicably, the nurses were sent to University Hospital Galway where they went from ward to ward. I do not know who was behind that decision and who will be held responsible for making it. Luckily, that has now been undone and the rehabilitation unit is moving back to Merlin Park. The Minister can understand my scepticism about all of this.

I come from a city with two public hospitals, Merlin Park and University Hospital Galway, and two private hospitals. I have watched the systematic running down of the public system and the building up of the private system. At a point when quite a lot of the private hospitals were in trouble, we jumped in to bail them out and insisted that the hospitals were kept semi-empty. It is absolutely mind-boggling.

I have one more practical question before I make some general comments. I understood that the Minister was making progress towards the private hospitals coming under the remit of HIQA. Where does that matter stand? When will the private hospitals come under the remit of HIQA?

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