Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

While I welcome the Minister's reply it lacks answers. Are we questioning the validity of the INMO to raise serious issues of concern with regard to patient safety? It has tried everything else and now believes industrial action is the only way it can get the Minister to listen to its concerns in respect of the serious shortcomings that are now evident in the health services. The Minister can engage in all the historical debates he wants about how we got where we are. When in opposition, he knew where we were and gave many commitments in that regard. Political choices are being made every day by this Government. The Government made the political choice not to burn the bondholders and to provide funding for job creation but has made no political choices in regard to the critical area of patient safety and health provision. The only political choices it has made in this area relate to increased capacity and ensuring reconfiguration of hospitals throughout the country is expedited while not ensuring proper procedures and extra facilities are put in place in the context in particular of University Hospital Galway, which the Minister, amid fanfare, also visited.

I wish the Special Delivery Unit and Dr. Connor well. However, it is evident from what is happening in the North that this will run out of steam very fast. While in the short term it might assist in addressing hospital waiting lists, the situation in Northern Ireland illustrates it will not work in the longer term. The Special Delivery Unit informed the Mid-Western Regional Hospital Limerick of its proposed visit well in advance. It is clear that management of the accident and emergency department was changed in advance of that visit. Staff have told me there were few hospital trolleys on the corridors at the time of that visit because of the forewarning by the Special Delivery Unit of its visit. The Minister should refer the Mid-Western Regional Hospital Limerick to the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, which should undertake a full audit of it in the context of patient safety. Nurses are not taking industrial action for the good of their health rather they are doing so for the good of patients.

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