Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like all emergency departments or certainly all major emergency departments, the emergency department at University Hospital Waterford experiences overcrowding and this has increased this year. Nobody is denying that. It is worth pointing out that of all the major city hospitals, Waterford performs the best in terms of overcrowding. There are eight people on trolleys in the hospital this morning, four of whom have been on trolleys for more than nine hours. This is the lowest of all the major hospitals. St. James's Hospital and St. Vincent's University Hospital are next on ten but there are other hospitals with 20 and 30. Waterford is actually a good performer in that regard. This is down to very competent and excellent staff in the emergency department, a good consultant team and good management at the hospital. This should be recognised. We are always beating people up in the health service. Where a hospital performs relatively well, it should be recognised.

There is no recruitment embargo. Obviously, hospitals cannot hire willy-nilly but the recruitment embargo was lifted quite some time ago. This is why we have nearly 4,000 more staff in the health service than we had this time last year.

10 o’clock

The hospital group is open to any proposals to provide additional beds. It seems that what would work most effectively and quickly for Waterford hospital is the establishment of the community intervention team, which I hope the Deputy will welcome, which is a team of nurses who visit people's homes to check their bloods, give medicines and fluids, including intravenously, thereby enabling people to leave hospital sooner or avoid going there in the first instance.

See this speech in context