Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, the Government announced a budget of €10.1 billion and yet in the south east at this time, we can only treat heart-attack patients in a cath lab for 60 hours per week. I remind the Taoiseach that Katie Hannon's RTÉ report showed that only 3% of heart-attack patients were getting out of the region when the Waterford lab was closed. That report was from five years ago and I hardly imagine that ambulances transfer times have improved since then. Four families living within a five-mile radius of me have had members who have suffered a heart attack.

One of those is Jennifer Pheasey, whose father Willie Doyle started the first cardiac care group in Waterford. That is more than a decade ago. These families worry every night, and go to bed apprehensively waiting for the dawn, because they know there is no service available to them. Many times in the House I have heard the Taoiseach mention and reference that the Government wants to leave nobody behind. We are leaving a whole region behind. We do not need a report to tell us what is needed in the south east. We have the testimony of the McDermott family and the Power family. We have many other testimonies of people who had delayed cardiac care and are suffering as a result. I ask the Taoiseach please to implement this. I remind him that the HSE recruitment embargo stopped the recruitment of the seven-day service by not bringing those people forward. They were emergency personnel. Why were they included in the embargo? I ask the Taoiseach to get the Department and the Government to stop dragging their feet and deliver this equality issue to the south east.

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