The seeming reluctance of Minister for Health Mary Harney to respond in any positive way to the case for retaining acute service s at Monaghan Hospital was a further example of the erosion of the democratic process in Irish politics.

This was stated by independent MEP Marian Harkin when she commented on the response of the Minister for Health to Monaghan’s TDs at their recent meeting.

“All politicians who have been active on hospital issues as I have in Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo and Ennis,  consistently come up against a wall of indifference to our representations and a determination to ensure that political responsibility is cynically passed on to the HSE”, she said.

“We are at the stage where as one who supported the elimination of the Health Boards in the belief that there would be less politics and more delivery in the health services I now believe the opposite is true”, Marian Harkin said.

Unfortunately, the Government had not received the necessary message through the ballot box which would have made them think twice about removing services from local hospitals, she said. “Until they get that political message from the people they will continue to disregard the needs of people and use the HSE to deliver an inadequate accountants based health service rather than the needs based policy people need”, Marian Harkin said.