Sir, – The current controversy over the selection of the locations for primary care centres as part of the wider reform of the health services highlights the urgent need for a simultaneous radical reform of the Oireachtas.
The elevation of Balbriggan on the list of proposed locations was questionable to begin with and the recent revelations that a prominent supporter of Dr Reilly’s most recent successful Dáil election campaign is the current owner of the Balbriggan site leaves a suspicion of impropriety.
The fact the site is in Dr Reilly’s own Dáil constituency can reasonably be understood as stroke politics: ie putting future party and personal election interests ahead of the national interest.
Further questions arise in relation to the elevation on the proposed list of two locations in Co Roscommon; your report (Front page, October 3rd) indicates this decision “mystified officials who drew up the list”. The Roscommon decision is less mystifying in the context of current and future Dáil representation.
In the run-up to the general election in 2011 Fine Gael, campaigning in the Roscommon South Leitrim constituency assured voters it was opposed to the planned closure of the Roscommon Hospital emergency department. Fine Gael, based in no small part on that assurance, secured two of the three seats in that constituency with Denis Naughten (then of Fine Gael) heading the poll followed by party colleague Frank Feighan and Luke Flanagan, Independent.
Ignoring the Fine Gael promise given in the context of local politics, the Government acting in the perceived national interest proceeded with the closure of Roscommon emergency department. Deputy Naughten voted against the closure in the Dáil in July 2011 and as a direct result lost the Fine Gael party whip; he now sits as an Independent, re-electable, TD.
Travelling in Roscommon, one could not throw a sod of turf (if you could cut it) without hitting a placard denouncing the lack of an emergency department in the county.
The next general election could see Fine Gael without a seat in the constituency; the voters are waiting for them and Dr Reilly and Fine Gael know it. In elevating the Roscommon primary care sites party political interests are again put ahead of the national interest.
Only when we rid ourselves of multi-seat Dáil constituencies and replace them with one multi-member (list system) national constituency and a small number of large single-seat constituencies will we rid ourselves of stroke politicians pandering to short-sighted personal and local, rather that far seeing national, interests. – Yours, etc,