James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I hope the Acting Chairman will allow me some latitude. I wish to put on record and to say to those watching the debate on the Internet or who will see it later that the trolley count for the first five and half months of this year is 20% lower than for the same period in the previous year. That is despite taking €1.75 billion out of the health budget, 6,000 staff leaving the service since last year and 4,500 staff being redeployed. It is also despite a 6% increase in admissions through emergency departments and a 7% increase in admissions overall.

There was no commitment by me, when I was spokesperson, to a new hospital in the north east. Approximately 48,500 people were on trolleys for the first five and a half months of last year. The figure has fallen to 38,000 this year. I accept that there are still too many people on trolleys. We continue to work hard to move to a nine hour period from admission to a unit to either discharge or admission to a ward. We are also working towards a maximum waiting time for treatment of nine months. I am sure Deputy Tóibín agrees that the person who is waiting the longest should be treated first once urgent cases and those with cancer have been looked after. When we came into power, more than 3,800 patients has been waiting more than a year for treatment. When I last checked there were approximately 102. I might be slightly incorrect in the figures but it is no more than approximately 125. We did not get all the way there but we got a long way along the road. We will continue to do that.

We listened to what people had to say on Drogheda hospital. We increased the number of medical beds, community intervention teams, home care packages, long-term care and intermediate care and we promised to carry out a capacity study. The study revealed there was a capacity issue. We put in additional medical beds to get on top of the situation. There have been improvements but I accept they are not enough. I make it clear there will be changes to the emergency department in Navan hospital, but they will not happen immediately because the capacity is not there to maintain a safe service. I always said I would put patient safety first, be honest with people and say whether a service was being closed because of money or due to safety.

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