Well said Rory. There many more fg supporters feeling disgusted with the carrying on of this bunch lies.

Well said! I’m sure it’s very disappointing to be let down by those who you elected based on promises they made!

Also a FG supporter but totally believe this thing has been blown out of the water… Think the Indo is a disgrace today with its gutter allegations…then again it is a gutter paper with dreadful journalists so why would i expect anything else…

Ah come on Declan,take off the blinkers once in a while.FG in case you are unaware have,continue to and will make mistakes.Constantly berating people who point out those mistakes, frankly makes you look idiotic and your comments pointless.

@Declan cotter

Yourself and David Higgins should really get together, you’re both delusional peas in a pod

I think you can add Noel O’D to that list too Gerard.

Hope you are not on about Roscommon again??? The correct decison was made there…People bang on about parish pump politics yet they are perfectly willing to allow the continuation of services in areas where there is no value to the Irish people as a whole once it suits them… same can be said about tiny schools, garda stattions etc…!!!
country cant afford it..

Country cannot afford stroke politics either.

Keeping an A & E in Roscommon would be the very defination of stroke politics…. same as keeping an army barracks in mulligar when they can be relocated to Athlone!!! 2 locations on a list of 35…when 20 will be built is really irrelevant.

@Declan are you familar with the situation in Roscommon?.Your comment indicates you are.

True Declan, if one or two people die due to not getting immediate care it’s a small price to pay economically, they would probably only drain the system furthur being in hospital. I can only assume that you live somewhere that means if you have a heart attack you won’t have a 100km trip to hospital. I hope you never are in that position, despite your cold attitude to those in that position.

You think there is no value in some of the tiny schools and garda stations?

So what you’re saying is that people who live in rural areas don’t deserve the same kind of services as those in urban areas?

True there may be capacity and sensible arrangements that can be made in some areas to increase value but at what point do you suggest the line is drawn with services? Between, say being able to get a response from the Gardai within a half hour and being able to get one within 3 hours – where do you think that particular line should be?

Gerry…more likely to die if the situation was left the way it was. So place don’t play that card.

Declan can you back that comment up on people being more likely to die if Roscommon stayed open?

Yes Roscommon it is why ????????? Do you mr Cotter live the fear that we have here in Roscommon and as I did not mention Roscommon in my post Thank you for remembering

Roscommon A&E was closed on false figures and lies

Declan Cotter has a bias view on everything FG/Labour does! He’s obviously a Troll for FG/Labour parties! If he thinks he’s making a good case for his Party then he’s very much mistaken… He comes across just as arrogant as the people who lead the country!

Think they met on 3 occasions…Don’t use the pathetic Indo or its even more pathetic journalists as a source of refernence…Same paper that rammed property down our necks for 10 years and pushed the great Bertie at evey chance…Independent is the very defination of ‘lack of credability’

What credible source are you contributing your ..”met on 3 occasions”…. to?

I think they met on more than one occasion considering they are pictured together and Dr Reilly used No 70 for his 2007 Election.

Totally wrong. totally wrong thing to say..

Before todays story this appeared in the Irish Times last week
This is why James Reilly has to answer questions relating to the criteria he used
Do you not think even with your Fine Gael tinted glasses that questions need to be answered?

Speaking in the Dáil last night, Dr Reilly said Swords and Balbriggan were identified as high priority areas by the HSE five years ago. But both “lost out” after Ms Shortall, the then-Minister of State, increased the weighting attached to deprivation in selecting priority locations in which centres would be built.
“Multiplying the deprivation index by three, they lost out. They were swept from high priority to low priority. Under the original priority system both would have been in the top 35. However, under the new system with an altered weighting system they ended down the list.”
This is not borne out, however, by documents obtained by The Irish Times under Freedom of Information legislation last week. They show that Balbriggan ranked 44th and Swords 127th in a draft list compiled last June – before Ms Shortall ordered officials to increase the weighting attached to deprivation.
This exercise did little to alter the rankings of the two towns in the list, with Balbriggan remaining at 44th and Swords slipping just three places to 130th, the documents show.

Money and constituents votes can buy a lot, evidently!

3,300 people are treated per day, of which 800 are admitted across 50 A&E departments.
66 people on average per day, of which 16 will be admitted per A&E department.
We do not need an average of 1.9 A&E departments per county, we need efficiency. Closing down A&E departments that open M-F 9-6 is one of the ways we can achieve this.

^’uproar in the Dail’^

why would said puppy feel guilty?

You are correct Ritchie, we the taxpayers dont have the money……that is why they are to be delivered by public private partnerships.

Noel the sites were miles down the priority list, 44th and 127th as far as I can remember.

Who said sarcasm was the lowest form of wit?
We done Noel, my ribs are aching here laughing.

Every commentator acknowleges that we need 200 primary care centres and not 20 or 35. A factor in his decission making was that he was anxious to include places on the list which could actually be delivered in a timely manner. His point also as i understand it was that instead of just picking 20 (the ammount he has funding for) he picked 35 so that local GP’s couldn’t hold up the process because of their own vested interests ie he wanted to create competition rather than stagnation in an effort to get the centres delivered quicker. Seems very plausible to me.

Noel as I have just said the locations were 40th and 137th how did they make the shortlist of 35 from there and what about all the other places that were on front of them. Surely you can see why people are questioning the decision no matter how much you support the party

Noel you are as entitled to your view and I respect it greatly .
I am among those that voted this government in and feel deeply dissapointed in their backtrack on pre election promises and lack of backbone.
What sickens me to the pit of my stomach is the “it’s your fault” barking that seems to start and end all statements and it’s getting rather tiresome and jaded now.
This government are in long enough now to stand up and let people see some progress.
Between varadkars motormouth,reillys destruction of the health system,hogan’s bullying,quinns spinless backing of reilly … oh I could go on.
Now my message to kenny and co is as follows Either shit or get off the pot because you make Ireland look like the same circus being run by different clowns. Thank your lucky stars there are no riots on the streets (yet) because I don’t think there is a member of the Garda or a civil servant that will back you.

Damien I am intrigued that from my comment you assume that i support FG. Whether i do or i don’t is irrlelevant, what i do support is people trying their dammdest to fix a very broken country. I think its disgusting that people are prepared to hammer people who are making a decent effort in the roles WE elected them to. Seems you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t in this country.
Fair enough we would all like to see quicker progress. However i would prefer to see something being done right rather than just speed for the sake of it. Also i have answered the issue about the placings on the list, they were bumped up the list because they could actually be delivered.
Mike can i ask you what did you expect when you voted for this government? Also it ought to be remembered that this is a coalition government. Im not sure which party (if not both) you voted for but if it was one party you voted for then their policies alone do not make up the Programme for Government, which is essentially a compromise.
People call Phil Hogan a bully, he is a Minister, part of his job is to bring in a property charge/tax and he is also doing his job by making sure it is implemented. People may not like how he is doing it but they can’t argue that he is not doing his job.
Most people regard Leo Varadkar’s honesty as refreshing. As for Ruairi Quinn, i would think worse of him if he was not inclined to support a colleague who he believes has done nothing wrong.
As for us rioting on the streets, it will never happen. People are sensible enough to see that because of the actions that have been taken we are in a far better position than the likes of Greece and Spain.
I shudder to think of the mess we would be in if SF were in power.

Go back to scratching Reilly’s back He has put my families lives and that of my friends , neighbours and all of my county in danger we have NO A&E service in Roscommon at all and Galway in our nearest Sligo Mullingar or Castlebar take your pick and do the Journey

so your telling me that the places on the original list from 36 to 126 could not be delivered on and that the 2 that happened to be in Reillys constituency were ready to go. where is the evidence supporting this claim?

sorry from 36 to 136

You conveniently forget that FG and Labour were elected on the back of promises to undo the deal FF landed us in, they made all the right gestures and soundbites, I’m sure you can still remember them, remember all the chest puffing rhetoric about not one more red cent, labours way or Frankfurts way.?..
Maybe you forget the passionate speeches about the need to reform Irish politics and their derision of FF policies and their screams of “economic treachery” when FF allowed us be rolled over by our fair-weather friends in Europe.
Absolutely nothing has changed and how could it when FG in their laziness decided to plough the same route as their predecessors.
FF went unchecked for decades with their stroke politics and cronyism and look where we are now, we’ve finally woken up and it’s our right to question every move and if you don’t agree then I’m sorry but you’re a part of the problem plaguing the politics of this land

Bernadette the journey time from Roscommon to Castlebar is one hour driving normally, shorter whn in an ambulance. People living in Castletownbere have been living over an hour and a half or more away from their nearest A&E for years and there has never been an issue about it. The days of us having an A&E in every town are gone, history has shown us that two bit A&E departments in hospitals that don’t have the clinical expertise to back them up are not best practice. Also when getting a patient to hospital at speed is critical we do have an air ambulance service to get people there.
Damien there were 15 added to the list not two.
Dermot the negotiations with the other EU members are still ongoing, we haven’t finalised a deal yet but a deal will be done to undo the mess of a deal FF landed us with. As for the Labours way or Frankfurts Way and Not a Red Cent comments, they were stupid comments to make, should never have been said. They weren’t realistic and could never have been lived up to.
Dermot you are correct we are right to question our politicians, we should have been doing ot for years. However what is not right is that people assume that all decissions that are made are arrived at because of cronyism and stroke politics. Any decission can be twisted to make it llok like it has given advantage to someone. Should our politicians not make any decissions????
Also how am i part of what is wrong with irish politics? Is it because i have a view that differs with yours?

Not at all Noel.
As you and the FG/lab contingent persist in circling the wagons I’m sure you can acknowledge the cynicism and deep mistrust emanating from us who are of no fixed political affiliation, this has been dragged on too long and Mr Reilly has more questions facing him than he has answers for.
He’s a liability and a proper representative government would have stood him down ages ago not wheel out feeble excuses to protect him over and over again, it’s detrimental to any trust this coalition needs….and needs badly.

Noel yes the list was expanded from 20 to 35. you have stated that the reason that the sites were put up the list from 44 and 137 respectively into the top 35 is that the sites were ready to go..whos to say that the rest of the sites before no 137 were not ready do go or do you have evidence to the contrary..there was a really simple way for reilly to explain himself and why he chose not to is beyond me…all he had to do was publish the criteria he used including figures that he used to bring these 2 sites into the top 35… simple as!

@Noel O’D I would not like to be travelling in your car if you can make Castlebar in an hour and taking in the conditions if the Roads too and Castlebar is a fourth choice not a first Galway us the First and Castlebar is a fourth choice Take the journey as I said in earlier post then and only then can you understand what Roscommon folk have to live with because if this imbecile Reilly

Dermot why should Reilly have been stood down? Tell me one thing that it has been proved he did wrong.
As a former GP he is the person best place out of all the members of the Dail to actually radically reform the health service. When consultants start talking about the way hospitals work and how things are managed, Reilly has the knowlege to call their bluff. We need someone like Reilly who has a deep understanding of the health service to sort it out. For too long we have heard people complain about the fact that we have had teachers and solicitors as Minister for Finance etc, we now have a former GP whose job it is to change the health serice and people want him out. What a crock.
Damien he used his common sense and knowlege of the different facilities in the local areas to make the decission. People often complain that red tape prevents things from getting done. Shorthall was wedded to the idea that deprivation should only be used as a criteria for the decission making, Reilly felt otherwise, he had two options, he could have gone through the whole rigerous process of getting departmental officials to apply other criteria to the task which would have slowed things up or he could have choosen to do what he is paid to do…..ie to make a decission. He made a decission, simple as.
Bernadette you are correct it was not one hour as i suggested it is actually one hour 18 minutes from Roscommon to Castlebar. It is one hour 32 minutes from Roscommon to Galway. My previous comments stand. As someone else mentioned in an earlier post not closing Roscommon A7E would have been stroke poliitics. Closing it is not popular but it is the right thing to do.

Noel he has said he used his criteria to bring both sites into the top 35…well lets see the criteria he used…show us the figures as to how a site 137th on a list can suddenly jump into the top 35…you moaned about the last lot who left this country in a state but this lot are no better..if this man is to believed he needs to show us the evidence!

No Noel its not simple as..2 of the locations were in his constituency and if that were a Fianna Fail govt decision you would be probably the first one on here screaming blue murder..decisions have to be explained..what happened the great promise of transpairency from this government seems to be consigned to the same scrapheap as their famous 5 point plan

Damien the minister gave the basis on which the sites were choosen this morning when he spoke with Pat Kenny, he said broad criteria was used including accommodation, the opinion of local offices, the existence of existing facilities in the area and access to them, and the ratio of GPs to population. All seems very reasonable to me.
I could discuss the five point plan and how the government is implementing what it promised within the current financial constraints but i think it would be a waste of my time. Also the five point plan which was a FG document has been superceeded by the programme for government ie the document agreed by two parties who agreed to govern together. If FG had been elected to govern on its own then it would be correct to hold them to the Five Point Plan.

Damien also on the issue of transparency this government has announced that it will bring forward legislation to go back to the original Freedom of Information act which was watered down by the previous government.

He has said a lot but produced nothing, no figures to back it up, if he had he would have produced them well before now…Noel i’m wasting my time argueing the point with you as your party loyalty will always get in the way

And regarding the five point plan. Fine Gael we well aware of the finiancial constraints.
Discuss away as I am intrigued to hear the progress this government has made on each of the five:

1 Jobs: Protecting And Creating Jobs
2 Budget: Fixing The Deficit – Jobs Protected By No Income Tax Increases And Cutting WastePublic Sector:
3 Smaller, Better Government – Services You Need Are Prioritised Over Back-Room Waste
4 Politics: Politicians Taking The Lead
5 Health: A Completely New Health System

Damien figures can’t always be produced as an answer to everything. In addition he has said the Balbriggan site is in NAMA so converting the site into a needed primary care centre is a win for all.
That said for once i agree with you, arguing with you is certainly a waste of my time.

Haha fair play Noel..We shall beg to differ Noel but I have no doubt we will cross each others paths again!

I’m sure we will Damien, doubt we will agree then either though. lol

It was moved down the list in preference to mine but I swear I’ve never met Gavan.

We didn’t delete anything, Bernadette. No idea what would have happened.