Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and welcome his comments on that. I want to put on record that we will now see a development of health services in Portiuncula with the development of a new ambulatory care centre which will expand the outpatient services available there. Someone going from Roscommon town to Portiuncula for one of those appointments at, say, 11 a.m. will have to leave Roscommon town before 6 a.m. It would take that person four hours to get to Ballinasloe travelling from Roscommon town, into Galway city to the cathedral, then walking a kilometre over to the main bus station, then getting the Cork service to Oranmore and then a connection from there to Ballinasloe. There is a bus service going from Westport through Castlebar and Roscommon that terminates in Athlone. If that terminated in Ballinasloe, it would connect three hospitals together and the appointments could be organised around that.

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