Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not envy the the Minister his position. He inherited a health system which was largely dysfunctional. I do not envy any of his colleagues their jobs, all of which are about doing more with less.

2 o’clock

This is not about the Minister and his position or his colleagues and their positions; rather it is about my constituents. The Minister should put himself in their shoes. The 2009 HIQA report indicated to them that the current configuration was inadequate and unsafe. A plethora of medical experts told them that the answer was to move emergency services to Limerick Regional Hospital, as it was then called. It now has the more grandiose title of University of Limerick Hospital. Five years later my constituents are effectively told by HIQA, the body that told them the then configuration was unsafe, that the emergency unit to which they entrust their lives and those of their elderly parents and children is not fit for purpose. We are no longer being told that the problem with the health service lies with a lack of funding but with management. We are now being told it needs more money. There is dysfunction at the heart of the service, for which the Department and the Cabinet which acts collectively must take responsibility. The problem must be fixed.

I will read from the press release issued by HIQA. It reads: "The absence of a statutory governance framework is hindering the development of strong governance and patient safety functions". That has nothing to do with the availability of money; rather, it is a failure of this House and the Government to put such a statutory governance framework in place. The report states: "Moreover, 22% of patients requiring emergency hip fracture surgery had their surgery cancelled due to a theatre list overrun", despite the studies conducted in Limerick showing that theatre were underused and mismanaged. It also states "The single most significant risk observed by the Authority in ULH during the course of this review was the persistent overcrowding in the Emergency Department (ED)".

See this speech in context