James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept that it is on the HSE's radar but the part that bothers me is that it has been on the HSE's radar for an awfully long time. This issue has not occurred just today or yesterday. It has been going on for a number of years. It is starting to seriously worry me now and, while I do not mean to be parochial, in my area we are seeing a collapse in SouthDoc services. I am getting repeated calls from people telling me that they can get through to SouthDoc. This causes issues and knock-on impacts on whether or not ambulances should be called. Then, when ambulances are called the waiting times are far too long. This is happening as a consequence of the issues outlined, and as I have outlined, in that they are not being released quickly enough from the hospital.

Surely it is not that big of an undertaking for the HSE to put in place a task force to look at this over six months, and to get teams in place at hospitals to receive the patients so that the ambulance crews can get back on the road. That is all it is going to take: a couple of nurses and a couple of doctors. We are all aware of the recruitment shortages in the HSE at the moment, but I do not believe it would have an adverse knock-on impact on the entire national healthcare system to put those staff into the busiest hospitals in the country. It all boils down to the fact that ambulance crews should not be sitting in hospitals caring for patients. They should be out on the road trying to rescue people who are in circumstances where they need the help. It is unacceptable that this is going on in this day and age.

From my knowledge and from what I am hearing in my area it seems to be deteriorating. That is a serious worry. Is the provision of funding for a task force something that the HSE would be willing to undertake or look at, and that we would have period of time to look into this issue, with a time limit to come back with some findings to the Government? Is this on the cards with the HSE? I cannot take anything that the witnesses said to me today at face value. I do not believe there was any commitment in anything they said. Would Mr. Mulvany consider that?