Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would welcome it if the Minister for Health was to come into the House and outline the circumstances in regard to the extensions to the hospitals in Wexford and Kilkenny. There seems to be a certain amount of begrudgery about the projects in both those hospitals. I want to put on record that the proposal to extend the emergency department in Wexford General Hospital dates back to 2005. The hospital opened in the early 1990s and it is now 2013. The construction work is ongoing and on completion of it the opening date will be in 2014, almost 25 years after the extension was proposed.

For too long counties like Wexford were completely ignored by previous Administrations. I do not attach my name to chicanery of any nature but Wexford General Hospital got no more and no less than that to which it was entitled. The emergency department was operating out of a converted pharmacy in one of the largest counties in the country with a population of 150,000 people. I have had the misfortune to be there on numerous occasions going back to my days playing football and when family members have been ill. I have seen people in corridors passing away. If Fianna Fáil wants to stick a corruption tag on to the appropriate development of-----