Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is now more than a month since more than 80 GPs and 11 consultants from my county and that of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine wrote to the Minister for Health expressing their grave concerns at the deepening crisis in Letterkenny University Hospital. They have requested that the Minister for Health travel to Donegal to meet them urgently. The Minister for Health is sitting three seats away from the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine said on Highland Radio that the Minister for Health would come to Donegal. One month on, the Minister for Health has still not come to Donegal, has not met with them and has refused to take up that offer despite the crisis and despite the unprecedented intervention. On two separate occasions two weeks in a row the Minister for Health refused to come before this House to debate a Topical Issue with me and Deputy Mac Lochlainn on this crisis in Letterkenny.

I ask the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, or indeed the Minister for Health if he wants to discuss this, to stand up and be counted. The health professionals in Donegal, 80 GPs and 11 consultants, have made an unprecedented intervention to highlight the serious crisis at the hospital. They are demanding that the Minister for Health travel there. It is a month on and he has not shown them the respect to go to Donegal, meet them and hear their concerns. We want to hear his response.

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