Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. It is a simple matter of fact that all services across the regions have been diminished and the lack of accountability is shocking. What happened recently in Nenagh with St. Conleth's nursing home was nothing short of blackguarding. Deputies Lowry and Cahill are both claiming that they got this centre to be a step-down facility from Limerick University Hospital but HIQA has condemned the building. That was why it built a new building at the cost of €23 million or €24 million. We are now told that building will not be available. HIQA can stand over that. How can it stand over that and stand idly by? A private company is going to be put in to run the facility. This is madness. I cannot believe my two colleagues, one of whom has welcomed it and the other said he went to the Minister to look for it.

There are considerable numbers of people in my constituency waiting because of the lack of autism spectrum disorder, ASD, places. Parents express enormous concern on a daily basis about the lack of school places for the children in September. Those parents are applying to up to ten schools and many of them are now saying they will try to hold back their five-year-old children in preschool in order to get a place in a school the following year. What is going on is shocking.

See this speech in context