Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I listened to Senator Murnane O'Connor discussing the very emotive topic of health. We all agree that we would want state-of-the-art facilities to deal with accidents in our own areas. She is absolutely right to raise it in this forum. I left my office in Roscommon town this morning at 10 o'clock and an ambulance passed me on the way to Athlone. At Knockcroghery, I saw the ambulance pull in and I saw the air ambulance arriving. This was another sign of success and a different approach to medicine.

Six years ago, 5,000 or 10,000 people protested, with about 3,000 outside the gates here. Prophets of doom were saying that people would die, that it was awful and that the hospital would close. More than 500 people work in Roscommon hospital. Not one person that I know of has died in the past five years and hundreds of lives have been saved. The air ambulance and its paramedics have brought hospital accident and emergency services to the people. I am not saying the same applies in Waterford.

Sometimes - I saw it in Roscommon - people have used health and other such issues as a political football, which can be unhelpful. There are people whom we trust and they should be the people who make those decisions. It should not be politicians making such decisions. It is wrong that politicians make life and death decisions. In my area, the best thing was done six years ago for the patients in County Roscommon and further afield. The proof is in the pudding. However, unfortunately it got political because the national and local media did not want to hear the truth, and they still do not want to hear the truth. We will always have discussions on health and sometimes it may not be the right forum, but the Senator was right to raise it here as an issue.