Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I second Senator Byrne's proposal on the Order of Business. I concur with the request made by the Leader of the Opposition in this House, Senator Darragh O'Brien, for a debate on health issues in the House next week. Will the Leader of the House consider the inclusion of such a debate on the agenda? The Minister for Health should come here to discuss developments in the health service. I refer in particular to proposals that have been made by the Health Information and Quality Authority and other bodies. It is hard to know exactly who is running the health service. Although the board of the HSE has been terminated in a dramatic way, the HSE itself is still in existence. Who is running the health service in this country? Different statements are being made at different times. It has been proposed that the 24 hours a day, seven days a week provision of accident and emergency services at Roscommon County Hospital should be discontinued. Nobody has confirmed that or decided to confirm it. If the hospital in Roscommon loses such services, it will be in grave danger. The existence of an accident and emergency unit provides a stream of work to a hospital. The unit is the hospital's shop front, in a sense. People come through such units. If a hospital loses that service at the weekend, it will lose some patients.