An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10
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Joe Flaherty (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I am glad I know now what Standing Order 41 is. I will use it with wild abandon from now on. I raise a very important issue here today. Dr. Ali, a popular GP in County Longford who serviced Lanesborough and Longford town, retired recently. The HSE contracted for a replacement and we secured a very good successor. They are operating in Longford town and Lanesborough. It is implicit in the contract they are required to do three half days in Lanesborough. It is a source of great concern for us in Lanesborough that the contract has not been fulfilled in Lanesborough.
A local councillor, Sean Mimnagh, is very strong on this and I know he has made direct contact with the Minister for Health about this. In recent days, we have seen the Minister coming down very strongly on the Rotunda Hospital and the issue of contractual obligations there. If we are talking about contracts and the HSE, if it is good enough for the Rotunda Hospital to be implicitly following the letter of the contract, it is the same for a GP.
We have had a great tradition of GPs in Lanesborough. There is Dr. Colm Farrell who runs a very successful and popular GP practice there. Down through the years, there was Dr. Donohoe and many other eminent GPs who kept us alive, despite our best efforts. It is important for the people and they are concerned this an erosion of the service in Lanesborough. If the GP is only contracted for three half days, the concern there is the service is being eroded and ultimately, it will reach the point where they will lose this second GP. I will be calling on the Leader to reach out to the Minister for Health, as I have done myself and as I know Councillor Mimnagh has done very vociferously. We need the Minister and the HSE to intervene.
If somebody gets a HSE State-funded contract or is being paid by the State, they need to implement that contract to the letter of the law. We need a cast-iron assurance that the GP will operate a three half-day service in Lanesborough. Like the Rotunda, anything else is unacceptable.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-10