This article is from page 25 of the 2007-06-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 25 JPG
THERE’s been no time to pause and reflect. Since his re-election to the Dail almost a month ago, it’s been non-stop for Deputy Pat Breen. Plan- ning meetings, parliamentary meet- ings, Council of Europe business in Paris. The work may officially be- gin for the men and women of the 30th Dail this week, but in reality it all started as soon as the counting stopped and the seats were secured.
The political landscape locally and nationally may have changed but the problems and the issues remain the same.
The campaign trail brought prom- ises and plans for the future. Now it’s back to the grind. The future of En- nis General Hospital, a key election battleground, sits high on Deputy Breen’s list of priorities.
To him, the situation in the ancient building is bad and getting worse.
‘“T was over at the hospital the other night and to me that situation is an awful lot worse. There is terrible overcrowding in the surgical and male wards and terrible problems in the elderly care unit as well. It’s just not right. People have to go over and see it for themselves. In this day and age, to have that kind of overcrowd- ing in general wards is unaccept- able.”
With planning documents for the long-mooted re-development of the site now lodged with Clare County Council. Deputy Breen is skeptical about the merits of building a new
facility on a greenfield site.
The idea was a cornerstone of Breen’s party colleague and Dail newcomer Joe Carey’s pre-election manifesto.
But for now Deputy Breen believes the issue surrounding Ennis Gen- eral Hospital can only be addressed through the current strategy.
“Joe Carey, my colleague, has run
that idea for some time. I have said that in principal I have no problems in supporting it or supporting him on it. But the reality is I don’t see that hap- pening with any Government. The
Fianna Fail-led government is there for the past 10 years and that never happened. As I said before, Our La- dy’s Hospital was the ideal place for a greenfield site but that didn’t hap- pen. And now that the planning ap- plication has been lodged with Clare County Council for the first phase of the development plan, I would hope that we could get that speed- ily resolved. Of course, for planning for the long term, a new hospital is something that has to be planned for. But the fact that we are geographi- cally located between Limerick and Galway doesn’t help our cause.”
However, Breen also believes both he and Deputy Carey will be reading from the same page when it comes to big issues and problems in Clare.
“Over the past five years, it’s been a huge challenge to cover every cor- ner of County Clare. Clare is a huge geographic area to cover from Loop Head to Whitegate and from Ard- nacrusha right up to Bellharbour. I have a new colleague and I know that we’ll work very closely together on issues in relation to County Clare. Since the election the workload hasn’t eased off. I would hope that some of the workload could be eased and Joe and myself could share some common platforms in relation to 1s- sues in Clare, particularly the health issue and the challenges that Open Skies brings to Shannon”.