TIME TO GO, HEALTH MINISTER?

Minister for Health Dr James Reilly should consider resigning from office for his failure to live up to promises made before the last General Election in relation to services at Monaghan General Hospital, it was suggested at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council.
A proposal was adopted from Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, seconded by Fianna Fáil’s Robbie Gallagher, that the Minister be written to reminding him of commitments he made at a meeting on May 6, 2008 regarding the retention and restoration of services at Monaghan General Hospital should Fine Gael get into power and asking, in light of his comments that he would “walk away” if these commitments weren’t delivered on, if he now felt it was time he should resign.
When the proposal was adopted at the conclusion of a debate on the Minister’s pre-election remarks – recently uploaded as a YouTube video by the Monaghan General Hospital Community Alliance – FF’s Pádraig McNally made the tongue-in-cheek remark that he had no doubt that the Minister would resign as a result of the correspondence being sent to him by the Council.
Colr Gallagher said he had no doubt that “our colleagues on our right” (a reference to the FG Council members) would insist that Dr Reilly would resign.
FG’s Hugh McElvaney said that they should be …