Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will not be opposing the Order of Business today but I wish to ask the Deputy Leader a question. Yesterday, an answer was provided to a parliamentary question in the other House. A report undertaken by the company of the chairman of the west north-west hospitals group led to his resignation and proposed, among other things, the closure of maternity units in Sligo, Castlebar, Letterkenny and Ballinasloe. After we highlighted this in the question it emerged that incorrect procedures had been followed in putting the report together. Then, it emerged that the report was going to be shelved and, in the words of the Minister of the day, subsumed into the national review. This emerged from the answer yesterday by the Minister as well as the extraordinary admission that the review of maternity services nationally has yet to begin. One wonders how it is possible to subsume a report which sought to close units in parts of the country into a national review that has yet to begin.

The current mothers and prospective mothers of Ireland are entitled to know just what the Government is planning. Clearly, we exposed a plan, sanctioned or otherwise, to dismantle the existing obstetrician-led maternity services in the west north-west hospitals group. Is this the plan nationally? What is informing this plan? When, in fact, do the Government and the Minister plan to establish the review, in respect of which he has misled the House in the past to the effect that it was already under way? I believe the people are entitled to know.

There is an issue with the property tax and the collection of same staying with the local authorities of origin. We seek a debate on the issue because throughout the country there are local authorities, some of which have an extraordinarily high rate base, including, for example, Fingal County Council, which is alleged to have more than €100 million on deposit. However, there other authorities throughout the country which have followed the policy of this and previous Governments, in particular, in trying to live up to their obligations under the national spatial strategy and which went into extraordinary debt to accumulate land to try to meet the ambitions as set down by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. On the one hand there are local authorities that might have, for example, Dublin Airport within the rate base. Let us compare this with where I am from in Sligo. One corner of the former authority probably has more of a rate base than the entirety of County Sligo. It has all this money on deposit. Then there are other counties in need of funds.

Central government says it will take those funds now and use them or put them into the black hole of the Exchequer to fill deficits in health and so on. This is wrong and it requires a debate. The people are entitled to participate in this debate before the Government simply decides to take the money. We should have those debates. In particular, I seek clarity before the recess on the debacle which is the review of maternity services. It is nine months since we had the report following the high-profile case of Savita Halappanavar. Furthermore, the report in respect of west north-west hospitals group has been discredited. We need to know exactly what the Government is planning in this regard. Why have we not had a review before now? Why is the Government at this stage admitting that it has not done it? I am keen for a debate on these two issues before the recess, if possible.