Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I am delighted that the Government is fully committed to upgrading nursing homes, especially St. Patrick's Hospital in Carrick-on-Shannon and the Sacred Heart Hospital in Roscommon. I would like to mention something I have noticed during my involvement with various developments, including the development of an endoscopy unit at Roscommon University Hospital. If I had not sat in on many of the meetings of the management team, the design team and the various stakeholders, I would not have realised how much work has to go into developments of this kind. There are meetings every week. The management personnel at hospitals and nursing homes have to sacrifice an awful lot of their time and energy when things like this are happening. While I know the Government can provide funding, I am concerned to ensure we can get enough people together to work with all the stakeholders at Sacred Heart Hospital and St. Patrick's Hospital. We should be aware that when people are very busy, they sometimes do not have time to plan for the future. I would never have realised the serious workload they face. I thank everybody I dealt with in Roscommon hospital. They went beyond the call of duty to get these projects up and running. Many people, including officials in the Department, sometimes fail to realise that hospital staff have to work extremely hard.