Martin faces attacks from Labour

Health Minister Micheal Martin faced renewed pressure to quit today as a new industrial dispute struck Ireland’s health service.

In the latest dispute, ambulance staff in town of Wexford halted after-working hours emergency services in a row over conditions.

Mr Martin, already under fire because of a continuing strike by public health doctors and his handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome alert in Ireland, was urged to resign at the annual Labour Party conference.

Labour health spokeswoman Liz McManus told delegates in Killarney, Co Kerry, that Mr Martin was “presiding over a third world health service,” and was unable to recognise a crisis when he saw one.

She said: “The minister is so weak, so self-serving and so dishonest that it is now time for him to go.

“The deterioration in health services are both shocking and inexplicable to the general public.”

In response to the Wexford stoppage, local health board officials said they had enlisted the help of the Defence Forces Medical Corps to maintain the service.

Today’s conference also agreed to examine the possibility of establishing branches in Northern Ireland.

The potential move north of the border was approved when backers of the idea said they should aim to build a strong, all-Ireland socialist party that represented “catholic, protestant and dissenter“.

The leader of the SDLP, Mark Durkan – who could be challenged for votes by a Labour presence in the North – was among the guests at the Killarney conference.