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

What are we going to do in the here and now? I know there are other things we are looking at like the escalation team around mental health and a pathfinder service being brought in and trialled in UHL, which would be very important. I would do that as fast as possible. That should be an emergency. The Government needs to treat it as an emergency because it is simply not acceptable that people in Limerick and the mid-west region have such long wait times at the hospital. The figure the HSE gave me recently was that 8,000 people were waiting more than 24 hours. What is happening is absolutely criminally negligent. It is not exactly all the HSE's fault, but there is no plan from the Government apart from 48 beds to be delivered in two years' time. Even here Professor Cowan says 87 beds will still be needed, and then with demographic changes the number of older people will have increased as well. Currently, therefore, we will need more than 87 beds.