Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome back the Cathaoirleach; it is great to see him.

I support the call for the secretarial assistants issue to be resolved. Their long years of waiting for a resolution received a muted response from in the House. I suggest that members of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission should meet staff representatives to speedily resolve this issue.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business. I believe that the Cathaoirleach is aware of the situation concerning a sarcoma consultant specialist in St. Vincent's Hospital. In June 2016, the Minister for Health agreed to the post. We had an excellent consultant at the hospital who specialised in sarcoma but, for some reason, St. Vincent's decided not to extend her locum position. As a result, the 200 people per year diagnosed with sarcoma are in limbo and, unfortunately, many of them have passed on. It is a specialist cancer that needs a specialist, which has been agreed. Two and a half years after an interview, the candidate who was abroad decided not to take up the post. My patience has been tested.Moreover, the patients' patience has been more than tested, in that they have lost some of the campaign group through not having specialist experience and knowledge in this regard. I seek an amendment to the Order of Business to ask the Minister for Health to come to this House. I have tried six times over the past few months to get him to come here for a Commencement matter. I know he will probably use the defence that the HSE has no involvement with St. Vincent's, yet it pledges to follow the HSE terms and conditions. One of those conditions is that a post must be taken up within three months. I smell something odorous in what is going on here. Two and a half years is a long time to allow somebody to not make a decision and then make one at the very last minute, leaving vulnerable and very frail patients and those desperate to avail of treatment to which they are entitled. I ask the Leader to support that amendment.