Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The first question is about the 239 patients who have died on trolleys and chairs since 2019, which means about one person is dying without a bed every week. Dr. McNamara stated earlier that, unfortunately, deaths in emergency departments are not unusual. Is it not unusual to die without having a bed or is this what we are seeing across the country?

To pursue the point on why the review is taking place now, the Minister argued that it is a response to the performance in the first four months of this year. The HIQA inspection report of March 2022 noted that UHL was the only model 4 hospital with an emergency department and stated that this both "contributed to and significantly impacted on the effective workings of the hospital's emergency department". Why did that not trigger such a review?

The Minister indicated that he does not believe the reconfiguration was done properly. It seems the reconfiguration was a disaster. We made that argument at the time and have been very consistent in that regard, having campaigned on the issue while Fianna Fáil was putting through the reconfiguration and Deputy Willie O'Dea was pretending it was not happening.

Let us say the review starts in three months and concludes six months after that. If it were to recommend another model 3 hospital in the region with an emergency department, etc., roughly how long would it take to get from that point to the delivery of an emergency department?