Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to concentrate on the many who suffer from massive pain in this country, whether it be from hip or knee, or the pain and worry of losing eyesight and being in need of a cataract operation. The cataract operation is a 20-minute procedure for which many people in Cork and Kerry have been waiting for five years. For many of these, the cross-border directive has been a game changer in their lives and it has got them out of excruciating pain or has given them back their eyesight when they knew they were being left to go blind. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae and I have organised taking 2,000 people from all over counties Cork and Kerry to Belfast in the past two years. Some of them were far into their 90s. They had no choice except to go blind at home or go to Kingsbridge Private Hospital, Belfast to save their sight. I truly welcome the recent announcement of the building of a new cataract theatre in Cork.

I hope in the coming years this happens and that it is not like the endoscopy unit, announced by the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, surrounded by a huge fanfare in Bantry hospital two years ago which, as of yet two years on, has not had a sod turned or a brick laid. The people who are losing their eyesight rapidly cannot wait two years for a clinic to open in Cork. Some cannot even wait two months.

In the next week and a half, I have men and women from Skibbereen, Durrus, Bandon, Baltimore, Ballineen, Carrigaline, Ballinlough, Ballyvolane, Dublin Hill, Kinsale, Goleen, Midleton, Kealkill, Tipperary, Clonakilty-----

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