Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will certainly will miss her from this Chamber, but I have no doubt that she will do a marvellous job in Europe for us. I hope that she will stay in touch with this House. I thank the former MEP, Liadh Ní Riada, for her hard work, particularly for rural and coastal communities. She did Trojan work, particularly in the area of fishing and rural development. I wish her well for the future and I have no doubt that she will continue to make a major contribution.

I welcome yesterday's announcement on the approval of Spinraza. Senators will know that I have spoken in this House many times about Spinraza so I was absolutely thrilled yesterday when we got the news it is going to be made available. I was particularly thrilled for Grace O'Malley and Cillian Mearns and their parents because I got to know them personally. Access to Spinraza will give Grace and Cillian a much better quality of life. I thank the Minister for Health for allowing humanity to prevail in this situation. Access to Spinraza was an issue that I was never going to let go of but I acknowledge that it is never too late to do the right thing.

Today, I would like to raise the issue of Belmullet Community Hospital. Last Monday night, hundreds of people attended a public meeting on the hospital. The attempts being made to get rid of agency staff and not renew temporary contracts is absolutely deplorable. One man put the issue succinctly when he said they promised us the birds in the sky but they did not tell us we have to catch them ourselves. The announcement was made within days of the local and European elections. As the Leader will know, there were 40 beds at the hospital but that number was halved when Fianna Fáil was in government even though the area is bigger than County Louth. I ask the Leader to confirm that the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Jim Daly, will visit the hospital next week and who he will meet. I would like to know as many people are interested in meeting the Minister of State.

The nearest hospital to Belmullet is 50 miles away. We talks about delivering healthcare as close as possible to communities and yet we are doing the exact opposite in terms of the privatisation and centralisation of health services, which must stop. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have platitudes saying that we believe in primary and community care yet at the same time make the most vulnerable in our society pay for overruns and the neglect of the health service.

I wanted to raise another issue but I will hold it over until tomorrow.