Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

——-medical personnel as well politicians. Having sat on the Joint Committee on Health and Children, I have engaged in the debate where it was said time and again that the National Children's Hospital should not be confused with a Dublin children's hospital. This is a hospital for the entire country to deal with children from the Inishowen peninsula to the furthest point in Kerry, from the most westerly point in Galway to the most easterly part of Monaghan or Louth. The best thing we could say is that those sick children and their parents should have easy access to that hospital, wherever it is located.

I am particularly sad at the tone the current debate is taking. Medicine does not recognise any boundaries or barriers, particularly religious or political.