Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputies Michael Collins and Danny Healy-Rae have done much work on this matter. They have brought thousands of people to Belfast to have operations performed in order to stop them from going blind or to replace hips. I have had a number of people from Tipperary accommodated and they got successful treatment. With no disrespect to the Minister of State, it is a scandal that neither the Minister for Foreign Affairs nor the Minister for Health is here to answer this. This has been kicked around on the head of a pin for the last several months because we are frightened. People are ringing every day to try to get in before 1 January. We have all the bilateral agreements and everything else, and people can come here, rightfully so. This Government seems to be making an effort to stop this because it is embarrassed. It would rather let people go blind and have issues with hips, knees, backs, scoliosis, tonsils and everything else, rather than accept what the rural Independent Deputies are doing, which is the Government's job, and help people to get services that they should be getting here. It is an embarrassment that they have to go to the North. We have to have a clear and definite answer, and at least a month's moratorium for January, because there are queues of people waiting to go. It is totally unfair to them. They are sick.

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