Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I know personally, from raising Topical Issues with the Minister for Health on this issue since I was elected to the Dáil, the Minister does not turn up. It is an issue I have raised with the Ceann Comhairle and there has been a solution to it where we get junior Ministers, but often they are not from the same Department, which is totally disrespectful.

I would not be raising this issue if it was not the number one problem in the mid-west region. It is catastrophic. I spoke to a person who is 70 years of age today. He has been on a trolley for eight days. When you are on a trolley, it means you are assessed as in need for a bed and there is no bed available. The guy is 70 years of age, with a stroke and he has been eight days without a hospital bed. That is the situation there.

It is important that the petition would continue. The campaign continues until we get the health service we need in the mid-west. There was a catastrophic mistake made in 2009, closing the emergency departments without delivering what we were promised would be a centre of excellence. That centre of excellence has never materialised and we have the chaos that is going on in University Hospital Limerick.

I want to put on public record my thanks to the staff who work in that hospital. It is an incredible job they have to do there. I have been out there with family members. Everybody in Limerick is affected by this. The vast bulk of people who go to the emergency department are there for 12 hours or more. It is an incredible situation. People lack confidence. Older people tell me they will not go there.

We had meetings with the new regional executive officer. The plans from the Government will deliver 48 new beds in mid-2025. For instance, if that was there today, we would still have 102 people on trolleys during the week. Therefore, there is no plan to get us out of this. The Government has failed catastrophically and I believe that is one of the main reasons the Minister is not available to come to this meeting and other forums, such as Topical Issues. The Minister has dodged the bullet in Limerick. He has dodged the issue in Limerick. It is either because he has no solution to what is going on there or he does not care.