Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

The thing that is most concerning nurses working in UHL is their inability to provide safe care. They have been talking about it and met the Minister for Health directly a number of weeks ago. They have looked for an independent review of the system currently in place in UHL, not the management system but the current system of patient flow. That has been refused. They have looked for the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, to come and inspect the hospital. HIQA wrote to management and got a response. HIQA has written back to us saying it is satisfied with that response and feels an inspection would add further to the pressures. We do not accept that. In our submission today we have attached the letter from HIQA. We believe fundamentally that there are legacy issues in Limerick, namely that the reconfiguration did not provide sufficient bed numbers in the Dooradoyle campus. The 100 beds that were added made no difference so there is now another issue. We need to see how patient flow is being managed. We believe that requires an independent investigation which should happen immediately. We do not accept that it cannot or should not happen. We ask the committee to speak with the Minister for Health and ask him to change his mind about that matter.