Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the response but it does not address the many issues raised in the letter from the consultants. For any Deputy to have to come into this House and read a letter of that seriousness from consultants in any hospital in this country is an absolute shame and a disgrace. The people of Kerry deserve better than that type of shocking, embarrassing and depressing information which is effectively being ignored by the Minister's office. I have conveyed all that information to the Minister's office in writing previously. I have not got anything satisfactory back. There are rumours that senior people from the HSE will come to the hospital on Friday. Nothing has been confirmed to the hospital staff and today is Tuesday. That is fine. It has happened before but we need to know what is the plan beyond Friday? Will that be another box-ticking exercise so that they can say, "Yeah, sure we sent down people to Kerry. They had a good chat and heard all the problems.", and then they go away again for another while until the next crisis. It is not good enough. There has to be a full audit of what is going on at that hospital because it has degenerated beyond belief at this stage. The shocking stories of patient experiences that I have heard through my office and from meeting people in the constituency are infuriating and I am not sensing the urgency from the Minster on solving the problems there. It is time for the special delivery unit to come in all guns blazing. We cannot hold back any longer on this because what is going on is the worst it has ever been. I want the Minister of State to convey that back to the Minister. I hope he gets to see some of this debate and realises that we are not messing here. This is serious. It is critical and some feel it has gone beyond the point of no return. I am an optimist; I still think the situation can be retrieved but they have almost crossed the Rubicon and the Minister needs to get involved personally.

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