Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo the comments in support of the Leader on the remarks she made last week. She is 100% correct and I fully stand by and support her comments. I also support Senator Ahearn's remarks with regard to rural regeneration projects. In my own county, projects have had to be redesigned because of rising costs. Even this redesigning to bring the projects in line with the funding approved comes at a cost. I support the Senator's comments. I welcome the funding announced for a project in Ballymahon. It is a major project and has received additional funding but, as I have said, other projects are struggling.

I will raise the issue of hospice beds, which I have raised previously. There is just one hospice bed in County Longford to cover a population of 40,000 people. We raised this issue with the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, when he was on a visit a number of years ago before the redesign of the St. Joseph's campus. We secured agreement for an additional bed but now the HSE is not prepared to follow through on it.I will read a couple of lines from a letter I got back from the Health Service Executive when I asked about the two beds. It states:

Such a decision will also have a financial impact on the unit, reducing the income to the unit through the fair deal scheme and increasing the cost of care. Any commitment to increasing the number of palliative care beds at the expense of a long-stay bed would have to be accompanied by an appropriate budgetary allocation to compensate for the fair deal income reduction in order to maintain services for the current and future residents in St. Joseph's care centre.

We are putting a cost on placing an additional care bed for people with hospice needs. I do not have the exact figures but I am seeking to get them officially so I can put them on the record. We have way in excess of the average number of hours of hospice care going into homes because we do not have that additional hospice care bed for families in our county. That is not acceptable.