Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to take this Topical Issue debate. However, I must say his response is in no way reassuring and leaves very much hanging in the air the scenario of these three hospitals being downgraded and closed. We need to see a guarantee that these hospitals will receive the funding required to ensure they are approved by HIQA and their beds continue to be provided in the local community.

I mentioned earlier how Ramelton Community Hospital has 30 beds, Lifford has 20 HIQA registered beds and St. Joseph's hospital in Stranorlar has 78 beds. This amounts to 128 beds, and the new community hospital in Letterkenny is expected to have 130 beds. Despite the fact we have an unprecedented growth in our over 65 population, the capital investment plan announced by the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, will not see additional capacity brought to the Donegal area and will fail to meet demographic demand.

It may have been an accident that these plans were announced during the week as part of the Minister of State's capital investment announcement, but it was no accident the information was there in the first place, indicating the plan is to replace these three hospitals and their beds with a new unit in Letterkenny, rather than to use the unit in Letterkenny to increase capacity in the county.

As we enter a general election, and on the back of what we have seen in recent weeks, with one reheated announcement of future funding after another, funding which was expected and had been announced in the past, what has happened here is that in the rush to put out this information the Government has let the cat out of the bag on its plans not to invest in Lifford, Ramelton and St. Joseph's in Stranorlar. I ask the Minister for a cast iron guarantee there will be investment in these hospitals and they will continue to have the number of beds they have at present so they can continue to provide the essential services they have provided for many years to their local communities.

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