Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The number of patients on trolleys in hospitals was 40% lower in the first two weeks of this year compared to two years ago. The number of patients counted on trolleys was one third lower last year compared to 2011. That amounts to 30,000 fewer patients waiting on trolleys. Since we began to count such things in hospitals, why is it that we always had a spike in numbers waiting in January? It was not until the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, set up the special delivery unit that it became apparent that in many hospitals professional personnel went away for a week or ten days in January and cover was not made available to keep things moving through. This year is no exception, and higher numbers of elderly people are being admitted to hospital.

Deputy Adams' figures are not correct. At 8 o'clock this morning, 21 January 2014, the number of people on trolleys was 341 and at 2 p.m. it was 210. It is still too many, but the impact made by the Minister, Deputy Reilly, in deliberately dealing with this has brought about substantial improvements in respect of the number of patients on trolleys.

Deputy Adams' comment about HIQA will be investigated to see if the recommendations are being implemented. We will report to the House on that.

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