THE hospital that independent Kerry South TD Jackie Healy-Rae claimed to have secured in his pre-budget deal with the government was already promised 11 months ago.

The Sunday Tribune has obtained an HSE letter, dated 23 January last, that outlines the executive's commitment to build the 40-bed hospital in Kenmare.

It has also emerged that the facility was first promised to the people of the south Kerry town in the mid-1970s.

Healy-Rae has claimed responsibility for securing commitments that the hospital will be built on a number of occasions in the past ? long before his latest budget deal.

Last week the TD said he would support the budget after claiming he had secured a new deal with the government.

His son, councillor Michael Healy-Rae, backed up the claim. "My father will be supporting the government because he has secured a new 40-bed hospital for Kenmare to go to construction in 2010, and a number of other vital projects for south Kerry," he said.

But the letter, sent in January from Michael Fitzgerald, the acting local health manager of Kerry community services, to Fine Gael councillor John Sheahan clearly outlines the HSE's previous commitment to provide "a 40-bed replacement facility in totally new accommodation on the existing site in Kenmare."

The letter outlines the HSE's plan to seek construction tenders for the facility by the end of this year, with building to start in 2010.

Healy-Rae's claim is just the latest in a long line of similar 'deals'.

Just before Christmas last year, he published a letter he received from Tánaiste Mary Coughlan outlining that the HSE had informed her that the expected timeframe for the new hospital would be 2010.

Last January the Irish Medical News wrote: "Nearly 34 years ago, [Jackie] Healy-Rae won his first election to Kerry county council. At the time, he told a Kenmare publication he had been instrumental in securing an extra 10 beds for the hospital."

But nothing ever happened and "in May 2002, during election season, Healy-Rae and councillor Michael Healy-Rae announced that they had secured €2m for an extension to Kenmare hospital as one of their achievements.

"This is truth, and in fact not wishful thinking as dreamt by others," they stated at the time, but nothing materialised.

Last week's announcement was just the latest in a litany of announcements on the facility. Former cardiac surgeon Maurice Neligan said that a hospital is an "impossibility" in Kenmare, criticised the Healy-Rae 'deal' and labelled it "gombeen politics unworthy of a nationalparliament".

Meanwhile, the Sunday Tribune understands that Taoiseach Brian Cowen 'faced down' the two estranged Sligo Fianna Fáil backbenchers Jimmy Devins and Eamon Scanlon during a crunch meeting last week.

Devins and Scanlon – who left the Fianna Fáil party after a row over the removal of cancer services from Sligo General Hospital earlier this year – attempted to have the services restored in return for their support in crucial budget votes. But Cowen refused to succumb to their demands on the cancer issue. The pair, referred to by Labour's Eamon Gilmore as "the two strays from Fianna Fáil", later confirmed on Thursday that they would support the government following an undertaking from Cowen that work on a new €50m development at the Sligo hospital will begin next year.