Words return to haunt them
THE LABOUR Party believed that Sligo should have been designated as a ninth centre for cancer services in Ireland in order to serve the north west of the country.
That was according to Labour Party Leader Eamon Gilmore in a letter dated May 12th 2009 in a letter to Sligo's mayor at the time, Veronica Cawley.
In the letter, Mr. Gilmore added: " The Labour Party is very conscious of the fact that no such centre has been designated north of the line between Galway and Dublin. We believe this is wrong and should be corrected by designating Sligo as the Centre for the North West."
He repeated this commitment in a letter dated September 23rd 2009 to Mayor Cawley.
And in a letter to the Save Sligo Cancer Services Campaign group, dated September 14th 2009, Dr. James Reilly, who is now the Minister for Health, wrote that he believed the previous government had "not made a compelling case for the removal of the excellent services of Sligo General Hospital nor had it justified the absence of a specialist centre north of a DublinGalway line.
"Fine Gael will continued to support your campaign in any way that we can," Dr. Reilly wrote.
