Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Health for his response. I am trying to read between the lines.

I welcome some of the positive investment in Galway University Hospital. It is the case that construction on a new 75 bed ward block will start next year which will have a big effect on the number of people on trolleys. However, we are still left with a completely inadequate, underdeveloped and unsafe emergency department. The Minister said he asked the HSE to ensure some funding is available. The term "some funding" is vague. Will some funding allow what I have asked to happen to take place? Will it allow the HSE in Galway to engage people to design an emergency department, go to planning and move it along the line? The capital plan is a number of years away. There is no point being in a capital plan if we do not have a project ready to go.

Will the Minister be clear with me, because this is extremely important to me, as a public representative, and to the people of Galway? Will he ensure the funding, for which he has asked the HSE, will allow the emergency department to be redesigned, to go to planning and to be brought along to a stage where it can be capital-funded in the future? There is no point applying some funding, which only goes halfway. We are either going to do something right or not do it at all. Will the Minister clarify that because it is particularly important. As he will have seen, the situation is getting worse as time goes on.

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