Intervention call over health funds

Galway East TD Ulick Burke has called for the Minister for Health to intervene and protect mental health funds in his constituency and across the county.

Expressing his concern at a reply to a Parliamentary Question in relation to the sale of St Brigid’s Hospital in Ballinasloe, the Fine Gael TD said HSE West appears to be moving the goalposts on this issue.
Deputy Burke had requested that the Minister for Health Mary Harney ringfence any money raised from the sale of the property for mental health services in the locality. Now, the Galway East representative says he understands that any monies accruing from the sale of this property will be returned to the Exchequer and the HSE to be channelled through the capital plan for “a range of priority projects across the service”, including East Galway.
“Are we now to believe that monies accruing from the sale of this HSE property will be subsumed into the black hole called the HSE to fund top-heavy administration and corporate expenses with little or no funding for mental health support services allocated at local level where it was originally intended?” asked deputy Burke.
“In 2009, this Government announced its plan to develop 20 primary care centres with integrated Community mental health facilities. As yet, we have not seen any initiative at local level in support of this plan. We need a guarantee from the minister that monies raised from the sale of this property will be ringfenced to support mental health at local level here in Galway,” he said.
Deputy Burke called on John Maloney, TD with responsibility for Equality, Disability and Mental Health, to clarify once and for all if it is his intention to allocate money from the sale of this property to develop and support mental heath services in County Galway.