This article is from page 19 of the 2008-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
THE immediate future of Ennis General Hospital will be known in approximately two weeks when the health capital programme is pub- lished.
Clare’s four TDs said they were hopeful that funding for the hospital would be included in the critical list for this year after meeting with the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, last Thursday. All of Clare’s mayors were also in attendance.
Some months ago senior health of- ficials indicated they did not believe that the funding would materialise with the money being diverted in- stead to St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
Minister for State at the Depart- ment of Agriculture Tony Killeen (FF) said that it was obvious from the meeting that the Minister for Health would like the funding to be listed for this year on the National Development Plan HSE capital fund- ing 2006-2011, but ultimately the decision was with the Health Service Executive (HSE).
“T always believed that it would happen as part of that programme, it was only a question of when,” he said.
Fellow Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley said he “was delighted that the minister gave a very positive in- dication that the hospital construc- tion project was on the list”.
He was critical of members of the HSE who, he believed, “tried to put
the project on hold’, favouring Dub- lin projects.
“IT am prepared to monitor this and intervene again to ensure the project finally goes to construction,’ he said.
Fine Gael Deputy Pat Breen said he was Satisfied that the delegation final- ly “tied her down to a time frame”.
The deputy believes, however, that the project may not begin construc- tion until 2009, as the proposed ad- dition of a number of isolation wards could delay the process by three to four months.
“I am more confident after the meeting on this occasion because there is a lot of pressure coming from Fianna Fail councillors coming close
to the local and European elections,” he said.
Deputy Joe Carey (FG) said that the minister must adhere to the time frame of two weeks as given.
“The minister has now given us a set timescale of two weeks. She must now honour this. I will be holding the Government to account in Dail Eireann to finally deliver this much promised redevelopment of Ennis General Hospital.”
He also rejected HSE claims that recommendations of the report on the C-difficile outbreak could cause further delays.