Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Deputy's ongoing advocacy for significant investment in Ennis hospital.

The very clear clinical advice that I have, and that my predecessors had, would not point towards reopening an ED in Ennis. Regardless of my view, the Deputy's view or anyone's view, the very clear clinical advice is that the consolidation of emergency care to the bigger hospitals was important in terms of patient safety. Also, that a hospital of the scale of Ennis, which I think has about 50 inpatient medical beds, it just would not be safe for it to accept emergency department patients because the requisite skills, diagnostics and all the things we now need in modern healthcare simply are not there. However, we cannot just stop there. The Deputy has advocated strongly, and I applaud his advocacy in terms of further investment in Ennis. He will be aware that €2 million went into the new injury unit, which is a unit that was opened last year. Can we expand the hours? Yes. Can we expand the range of people and ages who are seen? Yes. That is part of active consideration in Ennis and around the country of an expanded role for the injury units. To be honest, the units have been really successful so we can do more there.

As the Deputy will be aware, we have invested more in outpatients in terms of X-rays, other diagnostics and replacement theatres. We are investing in a medical assessment team. I think I said earlier that 20 of the more than 50 additional workforce for the medical assessment units - a full 20 of them - are going to Ennis and are being recruited.

While the clinical advice would not steer us towards an ED, the clear advice I have, which I fully support and I have no doubt the Deputy supports, is ongoing investment into Ennis hospital in terms of medical assessment units, injury units, diagnostics, elective care, medical care, beds and so forth.