Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

It is a measure of what accident and emergency departments have come to that we must put forward a Private Members' motion to deal with this problem and protect staff and patients in them. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children volunteered for the post and said her tenure in the Department of Health and Children would be judged on her success in resolving the crisis facing accident and emergency departments. In many ways, accident and emergency is the only part of the hospital service where we know what is going on because it is the only area where we can see the queues and the problems. Everything else has disappeared from view and gone below the radar since the abolition of the health boards and the removal of democratic accountability.

Given that the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children set herself this target, it is very surprising that she has not focused on a major part of the crisis in accident and emergency departments, namely, aggressive, recidivist drunks who add to the cocktail of problems facing staff at weekends. It is an unnecessary and unacceptable addition to problems staff face. People who join the Garda, Prison Service or Defence Forces expect to have to deal with aggression but people who join the caring professions do not expect to deal with aggression and should not have to tolerate it. This motion will not take people off trolleys in accident and emergency departments but it will protect them from the indignity of being vomited on by drunken patients and this is why Deputy Twomey's motion is so necessary. Society is in a sorry state when doctors, nurses and patients require a Garda presence to protect them from drunken individuals and when the issue of the chaos caused by drunken patients has to be addressed in the Dáil. However, it has come to this because the days of the harmless, garrulous drunk are over and in its place is the 21st century drunk who represents the sons and daughters of my generation and for whom we must bear some responsibility. This new drunk is hyped up on energy drinks and a mix of alcohol and illicit drugs and is driven way beyond reason and his or her normal disposition.

If drunken individuals are sick, they should be treated. However, if their presence in accident and emergency departments endangers staff or patients or affects staff's ability to treat other patients, they must be consigned to wet rooms away from their friends and placed under secure supervision, if necessary. All reports indicate that the same drunks return to accident and emergency departments month after month and they will continue to return if we tolerate it. We have been excessively tolerant of drunkenness. Drunken patients have been led to believe that their activities have no consequences and we must have a new policy that communicates to them that their behaviour does have consequences. Although they might not see the brain and liver damage they are inflicting on themselves or the damage, distress and inconvenience they are causing in accident and emergency departments, the spartan and lonely conditions in wet rooms and double hospital charges might have some effect on them. Parents of underage drinkers should be informed of and brought to hospitals to see the condition of their children. If we are to change this culture of drunkenness and tolerance of drunkenness, somebody, be it the child or the parents, must take responsibility.

I urge the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children not to ignore this motion because it is dealing with a serious problem.

See this speech in context