James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

As I stated in response to an earlier question, we have reduced the number of people on trolleys by 20%. I have acknowledged there are too many people waiting on trolleys and that we are now to move to a model using the total patient journey time. There has been much criticism in some newspapers of the employment of consultants from the United Kingdom who have behind them the achievement of a four hour journey time from registration to either admission or discharge. They are in this country, on relatively short-term contracts, to help us get a handle on how our system is managed. The system and the management thereof have constituted the problem. We have excellent doctors and nurses, and some excellent managers and administrators, but the system itself, because of the central control and command, has disempowered the front-line staff and those at local level from making the sorts of decisions they need to make to have the service run more effectively and efficiently. We are addressing that.

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