Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I move the following amendment to the Order of Business:

"That on the conclusion of No. 1, statements be taken on Monaghan hospital and related issues."

We would be in dereliction of our duty if we did not find an opportunity on today's Order of Business to debate the very serious and tragic issues that surround the death last week of Mr. Patrick Walsh in County Monaghan.

At the outset I wish to extend our sympathy to his family concerning the tragedy that took place in Monaghan General Hospital last week. We need a statement on the issue today from the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children.

While we have all been aware for some time of very serious issues in the Cavan-Monaghan region and what would appear to be operational difficulties in terms of the health service, there are specific issues relating to this case that need to be fully aired in the House. The first obvious issue is how it happened that the hospital authorities in Monaghan, who were looking for an acute bed in the nearest hospitals to which to transfer a man who was bleeding to death, were told there were no beds available when we discovered only this week that two such acute beds were available, one in Cavan and the other in Drogheda.

There are other issues around this case. There is the fact, which has not been denied by either the HSE or the Government to date, that earlier this year a surgeon in Monaghan General Hospital who took part in an emergency surgery was subsequently chastised by the HSE for doing so. We need to debate the issue concerning the protocol in place and the way in which the community and region in question are served by the health services.

While it is important to decouple politics from medicine in this instance, we also need political accountability. We need the HSE and the Department of Health and Children to ensure, through its Minister, that all these issues are debated in full. When we supported the establishment of the HSE we did not mean to remove politics from the very important debates that surround this issue. We need to debate this matter today. I ask the Leader of the House to try in the best way possible to accede to our request. I raised this matter with the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, CPP, some time ago. All groups should be entitled to change their Private Members' business on a Monday morning to ensure that such matters can be discussed in the House on the day they are raised. We must address this matter again with the CPP so I ask the Leader to accede to our request.