Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I see the trolley figures every day and Limerick is under enormous pressure because of patient acute capacity but there has been such change and I pay tribute to Ms Broderick; Dr. Catherine Peters, the clinical director of the region; and Mr. Ian Carter, the manager, because there are a couple of things that show it is going well. Limerick, despite being under an awful lot of pressure, has the best weekend discharging of all our hospitals. That is a credit to the way in which it is managed and the way in which people are turning up to be there for patient safety. They are turning up to discharge where they know discharging is necessary and timely. All consultants at UHL, regardless of contract status - this is a shout-out to every other hospital which could be doing this - are working extended hours to meet increasing demand. The cardiology, renal, emergency medicine and surgery consultants are all working on site at the weekends. There are extended working hours in the medical assessment units at the model 2 hospitals, helping to reduce emergency department presentations in the first instance. Weekend discharges across July 2025, for example, increased 50% on weekends in 2024.

These are indications of a hospital being managed and run well. When I see my list of trolleys - and I look at them every single day - and see poor Limerick down at the bottom, I know they are running their hospital with the best patient flow they can and that it is a bed problem. Meanwhile, I look at other hospitals and cannot say the same thing about them. We spoke about the improvement in Tallaght. This is completely possible. Limerick has taken all the best steps. Limerick discharged 37 people last Sunday, while Kerry discharged six.