James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

——one to two people a month are losing their lives unnecessarily because of overcrowding in the accident and emergency department and in the hospital generally. The hospital is €4.5 million over budget, has 100% occupancy in its surgical and medical wards and sees 30 new cases of MRSA every year. The number of overnight stays in April 2008, as mentioned, increased by 136% compared to the same month in 2007. According to the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, if we extrapolate these figures to the rest of the country, we find that 360 people are dying unnecessarily every year. Is it fair to the people of Galway to impose 2,500 patients from Mayo and 2,500 from Sligo on top of a creaking system?

See this speech in context