Dáil debates

Thursday, 13 January 2011

 

Accident and Emergency Services

2:00 pm

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

We will keep moving all right, the Ceann Comhairle need not worry about that.

I want to correct the Minister. The figures that I gave in this House are totally at variance with how she can say matters have improved significantly. The figures come from the INMO site. They may be at variance with those of the HSE which has driven the emergency room consultants to draw their own numbers up as they grew weary of arriving in the morning to be told there were three persons on trolleys in their department when they could clearly see there were still eight, nine or ten waiting for a bed overnight. We have consistently quoted the INMO, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. I repeat that there were 243 on trolleys in 2007, 286 in 2008, 346 in 2009, 387 in 2010 and 464 in 2011. It has got worse year on year and for the Minister to state otherwise is to go back to the GUBU years of former Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey in the belief that if one states it often enough it is so. I say to the Minister it is not so for those who must suffer those conditions in this country and it has gone on too long.

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