Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is exactly as I thought. This morning I tabled a very important matter with regard to the removal and reconfiguration of 33 acute surgical beds from Beaumont Hospital. The Minister of State, Deputy Simon Harris, is a decent guy and I have a lot of regard for him. He is a very good attender at this House. He is the junior Minister at the Department of Finance with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, who comes in and reads a statement on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, relating to the second busiest hospital in the country, a hospital in crisis, where 33 acute surgical beds for cancer patients have been removed. The Minister could not even be bothered to come to the House to take the debate. It is not just he who could not be bothered; the junior Minister at the Department of Health could not be bothered either. Instead, they have sent in the Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, who read out a stock reply from the Minister, Deputy Varadkar. I do not know if it is something in the Fine Gael party this week that its members are not able to write their own scripts. What the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, read into the record of the House this morning is an exact copy of the statement from the management of Beaumont Hospital yesterday. The Minister of State, Deputy Harris, reads a statement on behalf of the Minister for Health which is an exact copy of the statement issued by Beaumont Hospital management.

I received the response to my matter - a response I am not happy with - but to add insult to injury, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, tweeted: "Was in Seanad for two hours yesterday and no one mentioned this."He is saying he did not know about the Commencement debate. He is using the excuse, which effectively is a lie, that he did not know about this.