Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach promised me some time ago that he would meet with Councillor Kieran Bourke and his Fianna Fáil colleagues on Tipperary County Council regarding the scandalous closure of St. Brigid's hospital, in Waterford. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, met them yesterday armed with HSE officials, who said the hospital was closed because it might flood. The existing hospital has been there for 140 years and has never flooded. There are such diatribes and lies coming out of the HSE, and the Taoiseach is hiding behind the cover of that. He has political accountability, as does the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for older people but they are denying the people of Carrick-on-Suir and indeed the Minister of State's constituency access to this wonderful facility. Now St. Theresa's, Clogheen, has been taken up as a Covid hospital and there is no place for people to go for respite or palliative care in south Tipperary because of this reckless closure of St. Brigid's in the middle of a pandemic. My goodness, someone would want to pinch the Taoiseach and wake him up. The hospital is closed in the middle of a pandemic and the people in the surrounding area are denied a perfectly good hospital, and then there is the refusal to meet people. Will the Taoiseach meet with Councillor Bourke and his colleagues?

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