Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to share time with Deputy Moynihan-Cronin.

Yesterday I attended a protest meeting outside Kerry General Hospital at which 40 GPs took the serious step of picketing the hospital in support of the staff of the hospital as well as to show their frustration at the lack of proper services available and the lack of funding to deliver those services.

Kerry General Hospital has the same number of medical staff as 20 years ago, despite the fact it is catering for a far bigger catchment area. The hospital caters for all of County Kerry, parts of west Limerick and parts of west Cork.

Last week I saw at first hand the situation in the accident and emergency department and the strain under which the staff work. I have never seen the nurses, doctors and domestic staff with such low morale as a result of the pressure under which they work and the lack of concern at Government level to provide funding for services.

I will cite a number of recent problems at the hospital: the transfer of the medical manager; the resignation of the financial controller; the non-replacement of the third in charge in the maternity unit; the second in charge is out sick; accident and emergency consultant, Mr. Seán O'Rourke, has threatened to resign; and accident and emergency porters have not received training in the application of plaster of Paris because of lack of funds to pay for the course. Such training would alleviate pressure on the nurses in the accident and emergency department.

The hospital was criticised in the recent hygiene report. What the report failed to recognise was that the cleaning of the wards is carried out for five and a half hours per day, six days a week with a skeleton crew working on Sundays. When that cleaning is completed, there is no follow-up service and two or three hours later, the whole hospital may often need to be recleaned.

There is a proposal for contract cleaning tenders and a further cutting of the cleaning hours and an increase in the work involved. No funding has been provided for Kerry General Hospital despite criticism in the hygiene report and a lack of adequate services for the catchment area.

I have asked the Minister on numerous occasions to go to the hospital to see for herself. I ask her again to make herself available to see the situation on the ground. What is more frustrating for those of us who are elected representatives from County Kerry is that the hospital services, the entire constituency and County Kerry has a Minister at the Cabinet table yet we do not have the funding for services forthcoming from Cabinet.

I ask the Minister of State to take on board all the points I have made. This issue is raised time and again by the elected representatives but nothing seems to be happening. I hope the Minister of State will address it in his reply.

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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I thank Deputy Ferris for allowing me one minute of his time. I appreciate it because I want to add my voice to the concerns raised by the people in County Kerry about the victimisation we are experiencing in funding for the Kerry General Hospital.

Some 40 general practitioners left their surgeries yesterday to picket a hospital. They were not looking for anything for themselves. They were not looking for a pay rise. They were looking for fair play for patients. That is all they were looking for.

The former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, is in the House and I must put some of the blame at his door. When he was Minister for Health and Children they kept pumping money into Cork Regional Hospital and kept ignoring Kerry.

The perception, which is being stated around north Kerry and Tralee by Government supporters, is that the reason we are not getting the funding for Tralee general hospital is there is no Minister in north Kerry. This hospital covers the whole of County Kerry. There is a senior Minister in the county and I have not heard one word from him.

As I have, Deputy Ferris has invited the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, to visit the hospital in Tralee. I doubt our Minister in south Kerry would even know the way there. I do not know whether he has visited the hospital in Tralee to see the position.

I met the accident and emergency consultant last year. At that stage he was outlining the difficulties he was experiencing and nobody was listening. The Opposition Deputies in the county are working as a unit on this and they have raised the matter repeatedly.

Who will take responsibility for Tralee general hospital? The position is serious. Nobody wants to take responsibility but the Government must. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, must take responsibility for the neglect. The Government representatives and the Tánaiste should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the current situation to continue in Kerry General Hospital.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I am replying on behalf of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. My colleague, the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, initiated the first doctors' co-operative in the country in County Kerry for general practitioners, which was a marvellous development.

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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The GPs are looking for nothing for themselves. It is the hospital, not SouthDoc, that is the problem. SouthDoc is fine, up to a point.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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However, the burden of the Deputy's complaint was that Cork was being preferred to Kerry and I am simply pointing out——

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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I meant the money invested in the hospital.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I am simply referring to the Minister's record in that regard.

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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Not for the hospital.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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On taking responsibility, there is clear responsibility now on the health services in the funding for a hospital of this character. It rests with the Health Service Executive,——

Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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He fobs it off on someone else. He was there for the past ten years and he did not give a damn.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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——as Deputies are well aware. That is their responsibility. It includes responsibility for the funding and the operation of services at Kerry General Hospital. Professor Drumm, as chief executive, is heading up the Health Service Executive and he is also a medically qualified individual. No doubt he would be interested to entertain representations from the doctors in question.

I understand that recently the newly appointed hospital network manager met the executive management board of Kerry General Hospital to discuss priority issues for the hospital in 2006. The development of cardiology services at the hospital is a priority. Hospital management has prioritised the appointment of a full-time cardiologist at Kerry General Hospital and the application for the post is being considered at present by the National Hospitals Office.

Discussions are ongoing regarding the re-organisation of appropriate staffing levels in the accident and emergency department. The HSE in the southern area has also confirmed that there is no change in the status of the accident and emergency consultant in the terms of his employment at Kerry General Hospital.

The HSE and hospital management are making themselves available to discuss matters of concern raised by local general practitioners recently. It is also proposed to establish a general practitioner liaison group with the hospital which will include consultant medical staff, hospital management, general practitioners and a representative from community services in the HSE. If general practitioners are concerned, certainly the door is open at the HSE and with hospital management to discuss these concerns.

A number of developments are being planned for the hospital, including a new emergency department and ambulatory care unit. The design brief for these developments has already been finalised and a notice for the appointment of the design team was posted in the EU Journal earlier this month. The construction of the palliative care day unit has commenced on the grounds of the hospital.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, is confident that the Health Service Executive will continue to develop the services provided at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee to ensure the delivery of high quality services to the people of County Kerry and those from the surrounding areas who depend on that hospital service.