The main outcome of the meeting was an agreement on an action plan to garner more support for the hospital and its services, which will start in January.

The committee will be asking GPs and businesses to make known their support for the hospital. A public meeting will also be held near the end of January.

Oireachtas members will be meeting with the Save Our Hospital Committee again in the first week of January to agree further details of the plan for the new year.

In attendance at Monday night’s meeting were Deputies Mattie McGrath and Tom Hayes as well as Senator Phil Prendergast. Minister Martin Mansergh was unable to attend due to other commitments.

Deputy McGrath is now working to set up a meeting with a deputation from South Tipperary,, to meet with the health minister in the new year.

The hospital will also be visited by the junior minister at the Department of Health and Children, John Moloney, early in the new year.

Monday night's meeting was the first opportunity for both groups to discuss the fears that services could be lost to Kilkenny, since the Oireachtas members met with the Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, some weeks ago.

A member of South Tipperary Hospital's medical staff, who attended the meeting, told The Nationalist that the Clonmel hospital is no different to other hospitals in that financial constraints are worrisome for frontline staff. The feeling of the hospital staff, that services be preserved rather than whittled away, was made clear at the meeting.

Deputy McGrath said he sees the threat from Kilkenny as the main threat to services in Clonmel, and he raised that at the meeting.

Senator Prendergast described the meeting as good and well attended, and said that South Tipperary General Hospital is now seeing more referrals from Nenagh and North Cork than ever before.