Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I just think it is so wrong. I refer to the major urban centres of Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Every single hospital grouping has its own pressures and we get that but what the HSE is doing is building additional capacity in the groupings that already fare better than the UHL hospital group.

By not progressing an elective-only hospital in the Limerick, Clare and mid-west region, it is ensuring that their capacity stays at a rock-bottom level. Yes, there is a new 96-bed block and inroads are being made, but in terms of meeting that absolute need for an elective-only hospital, that will be lost and it will not be fulfilled, I believe, for another generation.

I want to move on with my questions because I do not have much time. Shannon Doc is an incredible out-of-hours service in the mid-west and there is a huge campaign to have it beefed up for Shannon town, which is County Clare's second-largest town. When people there have an acute health need out of hours, it means a trip to accident and emergency. They could avoid going to accident and emergency and avoid taking up a trolley in a corridor that night if there was 24-hour capacity in Shannon Doc, or certainly capacity throughout the night and at weekends. I have written to Shannon Doc and it has been very engaging and helpful, but we need someone on high in the HSE to look at this. If it is truly hub and spoke, then we need to build capacity beyond University Hospital Limerick.

I have written to the HSE and the International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, the authority co-ordinating accommodation for Ukrainians. There is a HSE 17-bed facility, Inisgile, at Parteen, County Clare. It was renovated in the past three years but has been lying idle. Surely this is the site for accommodation for Ukrainians but no one will answer on that. This is why, unfortunately, I have to bring it to the committee today. The witnesses may not have the answer today but I ask, in the coming days, whomever's desk it is sitting on, that they would respond to this. It is three or four weeks later and we have not even had an acknowledgement of this. The witnesses might respond. I appreciate the witnesses taking the time to be with us today.