Mr. Albert Murphy:

There are no consequences for the HSE. That is why we are saying that the Health and Safety Authority has to be on the pitch. If there are 5,000 assaults, nobody is held accountable. There are no inspections by the HSA. That is worth mentioning. It is a key factor. Another key factor is that last year there were nearly 80,000 people on trolleys. That is like Croke Park full on an All-Ireland final day. That is what we think is normal. It is happening year in, year out. Unless we get to grips with the overcrowding issue in emergency departments, this issue will not be resolved. The key part of the escalation policy is that there should be de-escalation. They all know what to do when the pressure is building up, but in terms of decanting the hospital and forcing management to deal with that, it is not being addressed and needs to be emphasised. Let us consider the winter we have just come through. In the first week of January, there were 900 people on trolleys. The health service has forgotten about that now. We will just get on with the next bit. There will be winter planning and it will come out in November. We were talking to the HSE in November saying, "You have to scale back the activity level." The response was, "We will manage the service. We know what we are doing". Then, the unions were called in before the end of the year, all of us, to say, "We have a crisis now, can you help us here lads?" It beggars belief that the winter plan comes out in November. It needs to be agreed and the workforce plan needs to be agreed with us early so we know what we are planning with.