Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of the health services in County Galway and the Saolta University Health Care Group, which covers six counties and serves a population of over 800,000 people. We had a meeting in Galway last Thursday night. It was organised by Cancer Care West and supported by the National Breast Cancer Research Institute. It highlighted the issues that are going on. We have four projects to be undertaken in Galway. These are the accident and emergency department, which incorporates the women and children's block; the replacement laboratory building; the cancer centre and a new ward block; and a decision must also be made on an elective hospital.

We have an accident and emergency department which has been demolished to make way for a new one, but no planning permission has even been applied for. The go-ahead has not even been given to apply for planning permission. We are doing things in a haphazard way and creating a problem for the health service not only in the five counties of Connacht in the west, but also in Donegal. It is time we fast-tracked these projects and forgot about the spending codes.

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