Editorial

Enda Kenny’s hospital emergency

IF Sunday Business Post reporter Niamh Connolly had erased her old election campaign recordings, it may not have been possible to prove that Enda Kenny gave an unequivocal pledge to the people of Roscommon that Fine Gael in government would keep the accident and emergency services in Roscommon County Hospital. Now he’s safely in power, Enda Kenny and the Fine Gael party (and the Labour Party, let’s not forget) are standing over the axing of the A&E in Roscommon Hospital despite their promises to save them.
On the campaign trail back in February, Enda Kenny told the voters of Roscommon on behalf of Fine Gael:
“We are committed to maintaining the services in Roscommon County Hospital — and you know I don’t come down here lightly to say these words.
“You know down in the Accident & Emergency what it takes and what needs to be done, and what can be done in your own local hospital here. And we will protect and defend that . . .
“I want you and everybody else to get out there now, and defend what we have in Roscommon/South Leitrim and see that [Deputy Denis] Naughten and [Deputy Frank] Feighan are sent back to Dáil Éireann with an even stronger mandate than they had the last time.”
The Sunday Business Post reporter noted that the prospective Taoiseach “poured scorn” on what Enda Kenny himself described as ‘’decisions by bureaucratic people in a room far away from here’’.
That tape triggered other memories.
Within hours of the Sunday Business Post revelation, Shannonside Radio produced a recording of Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore giving the same commitment last year on behalf of the Labour Party.
“The Labour Party policy will be to retain Roscommon Hospital and to retain all of the services,” Gilmore said on Shannonside Radio’s ‘Joe Finnegan Show’ last September.
Labour Senator John Kelly urged people: “Vote for Labour to secure the future of Roscommon Hospital.”
Now Labour is in, Roscommon A&E is gone.
The bureaucrats lacerated only weeks ago by Enda Kenny have made the decision to axe the A&E — and they have made the decision under Fine Gael’s and Labour’s watch.
On Monday 11th July, Sinn Féin supporters joined the protests at Roscommon Hospital as Sinn Féin activists organised protests at hospitals in Tallaght, Mallow, Letterkenny, Monaghan and Sligo, coincidentally as the duplicity of the Fine Gael and Labour leaders was being exposed on radio and TV.
People voted for Fine Gael and Labour because they wanted an alternative to Fianna Fáil.
They trusted Fine Gael and Labour — that trust has been betrayed and broken.
The job now for republicans is to win that trust for the only genuine alternative — Sinn Féin.

Honour the Hunger Strikers Mobilise for Camlough

THIRTY YEARS ON, the 1980/1981 Hunger Strikes are still impacting on Irish politics and will do so forever more.
It was ‘A Turning Point in Irish History.’
The Hunger Strikes inspired and moved those of us who lived through those traumatic times; they have inspired and moved generations born after 1981; they will continue to inspire and move people in Ireland and throughout the world for generations to come.
This year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration takes place in Camlough, South Armagh, on Sunday 14th August.
It is a time when all of us can come together to pay tribute to all the Hunger Strikers and the families and communities that stood against the callous might of Margaret Thatcher’s British Government.
Let every one of us make every effort to be in Camlough on Sunday 14th August.