This article is from page 4 of the 2008-03-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
FIANNA Fail county councillors know that their future in politics will go the way of Ennis General Hospital and fear a wipeout.
With just 15 months until the next local election, the nervy politicians are only too aware of the fate that faces them if work on the hospital does not progress soon.
As the future for the hospital looks progressively bleak, the 15 council- lors fear for their seats.
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of the Government party, the group secretary of the Fianna Fail council- lors in Clare, Pat Daly (FF), said that unless the development of the hospi- tal takes place “the local Fianna Fail councillors will be wiped out”.
The man who also works for Clare’s most senior politician, Junior Min- ister Tony Killeen, said that all the councillors agreed with his letter to Sean Dorgan.
“I can assure you that if the Team- work Hospital Acute Review is not positive, it will create a huge embar- rassment for the Fianna Fail party in
County Clare,” he told the general secretary.
“At this stage, it is only rumour but the HSE are not denying that this de- velopment could be delayed by up to two years. Prior to the General Elec- tion, the Taoiseach visited Clare and confirmed that the €39 million in- vestment would be going ahead.
“For the past two years, the HSE have been playing around with plan- ning briefs and designs for the up- grade of the hospital. It went to the planning stage with Ennis Town Council and in 2007 full planning
permission was acquired.
‘So here we are now. The Govern- ment allocated €39 million for the upgrade of the hospital, the local authority gave the go-ahead for full planning permission and it is held up by the HSE through the Teamwork Report,” wrote Cllr Daly.
“I urge you to get the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste to intervene by imme- diately contacting Professor Drumm and insisting that this €39 million be allocated for the original purpose, the development of Ennis General Hospital.”