SUPPORTERS OF a campaign to retain cancer services in Sligo General Hospital are planning to take their protest to Leinster House.
They intend to pack the public gallery on May 14th when a Fine Gael motion favouring retention of cancer services in Sligo will be put before the Dáil.
Three coaches have been booked to carry the campaigners to Dublin for both the debate and vote.
One of the organisers, Ballyshannon-based Fine Gael councillor Barry O’Neill, said: “We’ll be taking careful note of how each TD votes.” Details of the Dáil protest were announced at a street march and open-air concert in Sligo on Saturday.
Five thousand people filled O’Connell Street in the town centre for the rally and concert featuring many of the top entertainers in the northwest.
X Factor finalists Tabby Callaghan and Sharon Conway, singer Tommy Fleming, Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan, trad group Dervish and You’re A Star finalist Áine Doherty headed a bill of more than a dozen acts in the closed-off street. Politicians including Fine Gael TD John Perry, former European commissioner Ray MacSharry and his son Senator Marc MacSharry were in a protest march through the town that preceded the show.
Minister of State in the Department of Health Dr Jimmy Devins, who lives in Sligo, was at the concert but he kept a low profile.
Speakers won repeated long ovations when they demanded a U-turn on plans to move Sligo’s cancer services to Galway. Government plans for eight so-called centres of excellence means there will be no cancer services north of a line from Dublin to Galway, apart from an outreach centre in Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
A number of placards illustrated local feeling about the policy. “Death by Geography” one read.
Cancer survivor Lily McMorrow, one of the event organisers, told the crowd: “We will not be treated like second-class citizens by the HSE any more. We will not accept that our cancer patients must suffer ridiculously long travel for treatment when we already have an excellent service here in Sligo General Hospital.”