Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to address what is an important issue for the whole country. I welcomed the Tánaiste's move to the Department of Health and Children thinking maybe she would use her position as Tánaiste to bring about significant change in a measurable time frame. I welcome the opportunity afforded by this motion to review the progress of the Department under her stewardship.

The contents of the Fine Gael motion detail several measures set out to address some of the difficulties facing accident and emergency units. Alcohol abuse and bringing drunks into hospitals is a real and difficult issue. It is a feature of some weekends in accident and emergency units and some of the measures proposed by my constituency colleague in the Fine Gael Party are worthy of careful consideration.

No set of measures, however, can address a situation in which the basic infrastructure is inadequate. I have repeatedly raised the situation at Wexford General Hospital with the Tánaiste, since she became Minister for Health and Children, as I did with her predecessor in that office.

The situation in the accident and emergency unit there is critical. This morning as I left Wexford there were 20 people on trolleys and routine procedures for 15 people were cancelled today. That is a normal day in the hospital. In recent weeks there have been 20, 25 and up to a maximum of 38 people on trolleys. I invite the Tánaiste to visit the hospital and see those people. There is not enough room for them in the corridors. They are dispersed around the ground floor, in nooks and crannies. It would be bizarre in a Third World country.

The new state-of-the-art medical admissions unit, intended as a model of its kind, is defunct because it is occupied by people lying on trolleys. That is a disgraceful situation. Last Monday I saw a new sign on the corridor leading to the accident and emergency unit, bearing the words "Quiet — patients sleeping". I spoke to a woman who the previous night had tried to avert her eyes when the man on the adjacent trolley was relieving himself. There are no screens to protect people's decency or meet the standards we expect. I know some elderly people who chose not to go to hospital because they feared the indignity of being on a trolley. That is a disgraceful, scandalous situation.

There have been times when the accident and emergency unit was so overcrowded that it was formally closed and ambulances were re-routed to Waterford. On one occasion the hospital in Waterford was under such pressure that they were re-routed further afield.

This situation has not arisen because of the issues the Tánaiste addressed in her ten point plan. That plan will not solve the problem caused by a population increase that exceeds the bed capacity in the hospital. Adding extra beds to wards and removing the so-called bed blockers, will not address that core issue. Additional beds are required. Years ago, 40 additional beds were identified as necessary. It was agreed that 19 of those would be fast-tracked three years ago to deal with the urgent need.

Those 19 beds have become a source of annoyance, frustration and ridicule in Wexford. The previous Minister for Health and Children formally sanctioned them in April of last year, prior to the local elections. That announcement is now seen in Wexford as a cruel deception, a clear and blatant lie. Beds were promised, more than a year has passed and they have not been delivered. It was a cruel deception and a lie.

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