Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister should listen to what he has just said. Why is this happening? He is in charge of the HSE. The HSE is around us here but this practice is happening. Why is it allowed to happen? The Minister quotes statistics, like the volume of beds. No one wants to do a comparison with Beaumont. No one wants to do a comparison with diagnostics, beds, resources, human resources. Why is that? I had to go and do it myself and dig out all the Department's own data. It is shocking by comparison. When I hear the Taoiseach in the Dáil citing Beaumont, not as best practice but good practice, it galls me when I think of all the people who are trying their best with so few resources in Limerick. The answers to the Minister's questions are around him in this room. If it is down to management, then management at the highest level has to be held accountable as to why we have a discriminatory situation in respect of resources for the mid-west as opposed to other areas of the country. What is going to happen over the coming weeks and month? I do not want this to happen. I have had very close family members in that hospital recently. What is going to happen? There will be judgment on what the Minister and Mr. Reid have just said in the coming months.