Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the guests this morning. Thus far it has been quite informative. I will return to the issue of UHL and to Mr. McCallion specifically. This time last year, an expert team was sent in by the HSE at national level in April 2023. That expert team made recommendations. One would have to wonder whether those recommendations were implemented in full and whether an evaluation was done as to the success of these recommendations. Certainly, from a trolley count perspective, they did not achieve what we hoped they would.

Moving on to 2024 and the appointment of the regional executive officer. Last week, in the wake of a very tragic inquest, a support team of very competent people were deployed to Limerick with a very clear timeline of four weeks. As they are a week into it, they have 25% of their work done. What does Mr. McCallion hope the support team this year will achieve that the expert team last year did not? What evaluation was done in terms of the success of the expert team last year? Is it as a result of the non-delivery of the recommendations - either some or all - that a support team was deemed necessary this year? Why was it left until last week to send in the support team when it was clearly obvious before Christmas and in January and February that trolley numbers were exceeding 100 on a daily basis?