Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am invading the territory of my colleague, Senator Swanick, but almost exactly 200 years ago, a medical practitioner called Parkinson gave his name to a disease we all know so well. In those days, it was called general palsy. In the 200 intervening years, little has been achieved medically in terms of a cure, although major strides have been made by medical practitioners and neurologists in the area of treatment and medication. An important conference organised by the umbrella Parkinson's disease support group is currently being held over a number of days. There was an interesting article in theIrish Examinerduring the week and I am glad to say that it was written by someone related to me.

Home help and follow-up services are most important for Parkinson's disease sufferers. Given we have an ageing population, neurologists are predicting that the number of sufferers will increase almost exponentially during the next ten years, so there is an even greater need for backup staff, particularly Parkinson's disease nurses, who do fantastic work in the house and on the road by calling to patients and helping them through difficult periods.

I have referred to a significant imbalance in the allocation of Parkinson's disease nurses in Munster compared with the rest of Ireland, in particular Dublin and the wider east coast. The discrepancy is almost as much as 4:1. The next time that the Minister for Health attends the House, will the Leader ask him to consider this situation and try to redress the imbalance? This important service is growing more important every year. I hope that the Minister will be able to throw some light on the matter.