Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It needs to be said that the people of Meath are 100% correct to fight for their hospital services and their elected representatives are absolutely correct to bring this matter to the floor of the Dáil. I commend Deputies Guirke and O'Rourke on doing so. I encourage the people of Meath and their representatives to keep fighting and to be extremely wary of promises of better services to come at some point in the future because, as someone from County Monaghan, I have to say we have heard all this before. We know what happens to commitments given by Fianna Fáil Ministers for Health. Look at this headline from 2002 which reads "Minister assures future of Monaghan Hospital". Who was that Minister? It was none other than the then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Micheál Martin. The article says he gave a categorical assurance in Monaghan the previous Tuesday that the future of the general hospital was secure. We are not even allowed to call it a general hospital any more. It is quite right for people to be sceptical because that Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, and all who came after him continued to oversee the downgrading of services in our hospitals, always with the promise that better services were to come. We are still waiting because those better services did not come. The Minister can ask anybody.

I have spoken to people who have driven past the gates of Monaghan General Hospital to go into the maelstrom of emergency departments at Cavan and Drogheda, sometimes ending up there for hours. Staff in those hospitals are overstressed and overburdened. The Minister should not dare to say that the removal of services from Monaghan hospital or any other place led to better services elsewhere because there is no evidence of that.

The sop was that Monaghan was given a minor injuries unit, which is actually a very good service, but it only operates five days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. which is by far the shortest opening hours of any minor injuries unit in the State. If those services were expanded, it would actually ease the pressure on GP services, which are extremely stressed, and also on accident and emergency services. When I asked the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to ensure the expansion of these hours, his response to me was that it is an operational matter and that there are no plans to extend the opening hours of the minor injuries unit at Monaghan hospital. Then last week I looked at my local newspaper, which reported a Fianna Fáil Senator having been informed that the Minister is willing to engage on extending opening hours at the minor injuries unit. Which is it? Is it an operational matter or is this Fianna Fáil once again playing politics? We will know soon enough because we will know when the vote on this motion takes place.

Any representative from County Meath and the surrounding area who votes for the Government amendment knowing the experience in Monaghan and elsewhere, is knowingly voting for the removal of services at their local hospital and knowingly voting for increased pressures at the emergency department in Drogheda. Any representative from Cavan or Monaghan who votes for the Government amendment is simply showing they have learned nothing from the experiences of the people of our county. Shame on them if they do so.

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