Reilly and Shortall to meet over centres row – The Irish Times – Tue, Sep 25, 2012

 

MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly and Minister of State at the Department of Health Róisín Shortall will meet this week after she strongly restated her position in the row over the siting of primary care centres.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore yesterday indicated he was satisfied Dr Reilly’s decision to add two towns in his constituency to a priority list of locations based largely on deprivation originally drawn up by Ms Shortall was taken on a “balanced basis”.

Ms Shortall said all decisions must be made in a transparent way after the country had been “profiled” in terms of population and age as well as urban and rural deprivation.

“The guiding concern from my point of view is that resources go where they’re most needed, where there is established health need,” she said.

“We need to identify where are those areas of greatest need and we have very, very good information on that . . . It would be very foolish not to take heed of all of that important data that is available to us.”

She confirmed she had spoken to Dr Reilly yesterday and said they had arranged to meet later in the week.

Mr Gilmore said reports of feuding between the two Ministers were overdone.

“I think some of this can be exaggerated. I think that what we have to be clear about is what we’re trying to do here,” he told reporters in Brussels.

via Reilly and Shortall to meet over centres row – The Irish Times – Tue, Sep 25, 2012.

via Reilly and Shortall to meet over centres row – The Irish Times – Tue, Sep 25, 2012.