Kenny under fire for ‘broken promises’

Kenny under fire for ‘broken promises’


Trevor Quinn

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is today attempting to calm the political storm over election promises he made with regard to Roscommon County Hospital. When canvassing in Roscommon last February, ahead of the General Election, he vowed to ‘protect and defend’ the emergency department at Roscommon County Hospital. The department closed yesterday morning at 8am, and was replaced with a minor injuries unit for adult patients only.
The opposition parties have pounced on the broken promise, and the incident is fast becoming the first real test of Enda Kenny’s leadership.
Last week, Mr Kenny denied making promises that he could not stand over in the run-up to the election. However, on Sunday, The Sunday Business Post produced a tape on which Mr Kenny can be heard promising the people of Roscommon that he would protect services at the hospital.
The Taoiseach has since apologised for ‘any confusion’ his comments may have made, saying “It was never my intention to mislead anyone on this matter.” 
In a statement the Taoiseach said, “When speaking in Roscommon during the election campaign, I repeated the publicly known commitment, made in good faith by Fine Gael, on the retention of services at Roscommon County Hospital.
“Since then, the independent health regulator HIQA has advised that the provision of accident and emergency services at Roscommon and other smaller hospitals is not safe. The Government cannot ignore this expert advice and, consequently this element of Fine Gael’s commitment is no longer tenable.”
The Taoiseach also stated that there will be no reversal of the controversial decision to close the A&E department. Defending his decision, he said that tough choices had to be made: “This is a challenging time for Ireland. It is the first time in history that we are not in control of our economic destiny … The challenging situation that we face economically filters down to the Department of Health, and the health situation is central to that.”
Speaking to The Mayo News, Spokesperson on Justice Dara Calleary said he could understand why the public is angry over the closure of the emergency department, and he accused Fine Gael of being dishonest during its election campaign: “The big issue is that Fine Gael knew of these difficulties before the election, and they made specific promises. They said these facilities would be retained by the 31st DΡil. They are completely disregarding these promises and by doing so are comprising patient safety.”
Fianna FΡil leader MicheΡl Martin was also quick to criticise the Taoiseach: “This is a serious instance, not just because he was caught falsely denying his own claims, but because he has done so repeatedly and misled the DΡil on this matter as recently as this week.
“As well as apologising to the people of Roscommon for both breaking and denying his personal promise to protect all of the hospital’s services, he should also apologise to the DΡil."

FG councillors resign
Yesterday (Monday) two Fine Gael councillors from Roscommon resigned from the party over the closure. Dominic Connolly and Laurence Fallon as protests over the closure continued in the county.
The resignations come just days after Fine Gael backbencher Denis Naughten lost the party whip after voting against the Government, while his consistency colleague Frank Feighan sided with the Government.

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