John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sure you were, a Leas-Chathaoirligh. I am an inventive chap. It is highly relevant because we are proposing to develop this as an outdoor amenity area. I am sure people who go there will indulge in various outdoor activities. They should be aware that as of this month, June 2014, the entire region in which they live and its entire much-trumpeted hospital group has no dermatologist. One could not make this up. There is no dermatologist, no skin specialist. If a general practitioner sees somebody with sun-damaged skin and thinks it might be cancer he or she has to try to squeeze the patient onto somebody’s waiting list for Cork or somewhere else. There was a complete and comprehensive lack of forward planning when it was known months in advance that there was an imminent maternity leave and where, after 20 years of what many of his colleagues have described as abuse, a senior dermatologist there handed in his resignation and said he could not take it anymore. This is an emergency.

I am not going to support this Bill today, which might expose more people to sunlight in Johnstown Castle and other places in the south east when there is no-one to whom they can go if they develop a possible skin cancer.