Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I do not believe they will. We must wait and see. Communities feel strongly about the level of health services available to them. They also quite rightly feel they should have some say and their opinion should be taken into account. This legislation is not about the Hanly report. However, in fairness to Mr. Hanly, he came to a public meeting in Nenagh over a year ago to roll out his proposed reforms. He has not been to any such meetings since. He might have realised it was not a good idea because people turn up and give their opinion. It was a useful forum in order to do so, but will never be available again under this administration.

The notion that a community will be heard on a health issue of major concern to it is gone out the window. How people deal with that is another day's work. This legislation is designed to undermine the voicing of local public opinion. It creates an all-powerful, Government-appointed, ministerial-directed board which simply runs the health service against a backdrop of legislation which will have excluded and deleted the notion of individual patient entitlement.