Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for not just reading what was before her. She gave us lots of statistics but none of them mattered to a child who presented at Galway University Hospital. Anybody under the age of 18 under Irish law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a child and should not be turned away. I can understand that perhaps with rosters that there may have been a difficulty. It is not acceptable but I can understand it. Yet, to tell people to get a bed and breakfast or go home and do a 230 km round trip is simply not acceptable. Trying to get a bed and breakfast booking in Galway during the summer is difficult, never mind the cost of it. My question is this: Galway University Hospital is a level 4 hospital. Is it an acceptable that a child can be sent back, turned away and told that there are no trolleys, no room at the inn and to go home or get a bed and breakfast?

See this speech in context