Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

There is nothing facile or superficial about this issue. A 76 year old woman who had a heart attack has been lying on a trolley since last Monday. She has been feeling so bad about her condition that she has been asking her family to allow her to die. Her family have been on the national airwaves to talk about it. It is not an isolated case.

The problem of accident and emergency at the Mater Hospital has been highlighted here on many occasions by my colleague, Deputy Joe Costello. The situation in the Mater is so bad that Deputy Costello has been picketing that hospital every Saturday for the past five years. I was there with him two weeks ago. I walked through the accident and emergency ward. At 2 p.m. on a Saturday, it was overcrowded for the patients and for the staff. When I talked to some of the staff they said "You should see it on a Friday night or a Saturday night". This is scandalous and I appeal to the Tánaiste——

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