Ms Anne O'Connor:

Mr. Woods mentioned the long waiters. The most important thing in an emergency department is not the number of trolleys but how long people spend on those trolleys. Trolleys are a feature of emergency departments. If patients are admitted to emergency departments, they will be on trolleys. Our challenge is more about seeing how long people are there. When people are admitted to emergency departments, they get treatment, procedures and so on. We talked about scientists earlier. A lot of tests are done in emergency departments. It is worth noting, bearing in mind that attendances at our emergency departments among older people are rising week on week and are higher than they have ever been before, that the national average length of time somebody spends in an emergency department is now eight and a half hours. The reality is that in Limerick it is nine hours, so not that far off the national average. Yes, Limerick has the highest number of attendances and is experiencing a surge in the number among the older population attending, which it has had consistently during Covid, unlike all other emergency departments in the country. In fact, however, its throughput is not that far off other emergency departments. It is important to note that.