Councillors seek meeting with Harney over clinic

LISMORE’S elected public representatives are seeking an urgent meeting with Health Minister Mary Harney to deliver a clinic.

Last year Caredoc rolled out an €800,000 programme that would establish clinics in Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore providing an after-hours medical service to all corners of the county. However, while the programme has come on schedule as planned for Waterford and Dungarvan the people of Lismore are still waiting for their clinic. The delay has been widely condemned, and now the nine local town councillors are demanding an early meeting with the minister to seek an explanation for a situation they insist is both intolerable and unacceptable.

Fianna Fáil’s Jimmy O’Gorman brought the matter to a head at a meeting of the council when he moved a notice of motion seeking the meeting with Ms Harney.

Councillors were stinging in their criticism of the failure of Caredoc to deliver the after-hours service as promised and they are demanding to know why.

“We have a top class service from our local doctors, but why is Lismore and a whole area of West Waterford being denied the vital Caredoc service that the rest of the county enjoys,” asked Mr O’Gorman.

He said that over the next two years there will be upwards of 150 new houses built in the town of Lismore alone. The same situation will be reciprocated in Cappoquin, Tallow, and all over the rural parts of the region. He described it as scandalous that the area is being denied a vital after-hours medical service that the rest of the county has.