Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the question of community healthcare services and the teams in our community which, as the Taoiseach said, will allow people to access care without being hospitalised. Less than a week ago, along with my constituency colleagues, I asked a Topical Issue Matter, to which there was a very unsatisfactory response from the Government. In fact, on this issue of community healthcare in Drimnagh, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, responded instead of any representative from the Department of Health. Deputy Noonan is a Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The issue of the removal of public health nursing services from the Drimnagh area due to staff shortages has created huge upset in the area. It relates specifically to what previous Deputies spoke about in terms of needing to keep local services local. In Drimnagh, the population is expanding rapidly and will continue to. Not only have nursing services been removed from the area, the community has also been massively disappointed to be waiting since 2013 for a healthcare service to be built in the area. It is not going to happen until the end of next year. Will the Government please address some of those problems?

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