Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their presentations today.

Hospital overcrowding and hospital problems are among the most prominent issues in my political awareness. When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, it was floating around, with Brendan Gleeson on "The Late Late Show" talking about hospitals and all these other things. The representatives outlined very clearly in their opening statement the confluence of causes but I still struggle to understand how we, and it still beggars belief in what is quite frankly a wealthy country, continue to have these conversations every year. While we can talk about hospital overcrowding being due to a confluence of RSV, the various viruses and things happening, it is about a failure to invest in bed capacity, infrastructure and staff.

We all know people who have ended up in accident and emergency departments because they have been referred there by their GPs, although perhaps not in the past few weeks because I do not think any sane GP is referring someone into accident and emergency unless it is a very dire situation. However, we all know people who are referred to, or get appointments to go to, accident and emergency because they will have to wait a year to get an MRI scan otherwise. They are sent to accident and emergency, they stay for a couple of days and they eventually get that scan. I have been that person who has been sent to accident and emergency. We have a farcical system where we have been known to push people - although, as I said, probably not in the past couple of weeks - through our accident and emergency departments to get them what should be a very basic service available in the community through primary care.

I have four questions that I am happy to put out there and allow the representatives to answer as they want. I read an article regarding an estimate from a data person that at least 50 people a week are dying because of our hospital overcrowding. A figure of 500 per week was quoted in respect of the NHS. These are very stark figures. What is the HSE's response to that figure? The data person concerned stated that the estimate of 50 people a week was conservative. What is the HSE response regarding that in respect of the families who will lose someone because of overcrowding? Do the witnesses hold that figure in regard or not?

We have had the national care plan. We have done a lot around this issue. Some €23 billion and so on has been invested in the system. We talk about bed capacity all the time, and that people who are in beds need to be moved on elsewhere, but they have as much a right to care as the people coming up behind them. Why do we not have these beds? I ask the representatives to explain this in very basic terms. Is it because we just do not have the hospitals for the beds? Are there wards where beds are not open? Why are we still here, year on year, stating that we do not have the beds? I am being very pedantic, but is it that we just do not have the hospitals? Why are we saying every year that we do not have the beds? Where are the hospitals? Where are these beds? Why do we not have these beds?

Dr. Fergal Hickey referenced that he believes there will be a public inquiry into this issue in future regarding who knew what, what they knew and why they did not do anything about it. Do the representatives believe it is a likelihood that at some point there will be a public inquiry into how we have ended up in this situation?

The INMO is talking to its members about whether they will go on strike. There are many conversations around workforce planning and how we will manage all of that. Is there any comment the representatives can offer around the potential disruption that will come down the line via the nurses, who are beyond frustrated, beyond burned out and are at the end of their tether?