John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Like others I offer my condolences to the family of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe who was so brutally murdered at the weekend. I am from a town where a similar assassination happened in 1980 with the deaths of two gardaí, Henry Byrne and John Morley. I know the Morley family well and I know how it has affected his wife Frances and the family since. My sympathies to go to the wife and children of detective garda Adrian Donohoe. I also express my condolences to my colleague, Senator Imelda Henry, on the death of her mother.

I wish to raise an issue to which the people of Roscommon woke up on Sunday morning when they read the Sunday Independent to see the Minister for Health was able to find money to invest in two small hospitals in Wexford and Kilkenny. Having read everything on this, I have absolutely no issue with it and quite rightly both hospitals deserve the funding they require to exist. However, the people of Roscommon were in the same position. We were 37 or 38 miles away from the nearest accident and emergency department but it was decided to strip us of that department based on information from HIQA which had never visited the hospital. This calls into question the role of HIQA. I have always stated that HIQA was created by the HSE to cover for it and for the political system so they were not to blame. I call for a debate - with the Minister for Health and nobody else - on the way forward in our health service, smaller hospitals and accident and emergency departments. This could be done as a matter on the Adjournment. If it is good enough for the Minister to find money for a hospital in Kilkenny or Wexford it is good enough for him to do so for the people of Roscommon who are in exactly the same position.