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

The HSE will seek to minimise the impact of any industrial action on patients in the seven emergency departments where strike action is proposed. Hospital management will agree contingency arrangements with staff to ensure that adequate resources are provided during the two-hour period of industrial action at each site on 15 December. The strike is avoidable and management and nursing union representatives can reach agreement before then with the assistance of the State's industrial relations machinery. I understand the pressure and frustration that has given rise to the strike ballot.

Recruitment of additional nurses and consultants is a subject of considerable ongoing activity by the HSE and voluntary hospitals. Recruitment campaigns are under way in Ireland and abroad. The HSE staff census returns for the end of October 2015 show that 754 more nurses are employed in the public health services than this time last year. The number of consultants has increased by 393 since March 2011, when this Government came into office, and the number of non-consultant hospital doctors has increased by 1,007, the highest number ever.

We have a plan to address emergency department overcrowding, which was developed by the emergency department task force. The plan benefitted from considerable input by staff representatives, including the nurses' unions. The measures in the plan are currently being implemented and are beginning to show results. Additional funding of €18 million has been provided to support the acute hospital system over the winter period by providing additional bed capacity and other initiatives to improve access to care. This is supporting hospitals to reopen closed beds and to add more beds. Some 197 hospital beds have opened nationally since October, another 38 due to open in the next two weeks and another 200 will open in subsequent weeks.

As I mentioned, HSE figures show an 8% reduction in overcrowding this November compared to last. The INMO figures also show significant improvement in the second half of November. This contrasts with the position during the summer, when overcrowding was 20% to 40% worse compared to last year. Recent progress is definitely going in the right direction and is a big improvement on the start of this year, when there were 500 to 600 people on trolleys on some mornings. For example, at 8 a.m. today, the number of people waiting on trolleys was 244 and 110 patients were waiting for more than nine hours. This is 23% lower than this time last year.

I recognise the continued difficulties being experienced in emergency department and the enormous contribution staff make in meeting the needs of patients. Progress is being made but this needs to be sustained in each hospital and nationally through the full implementation of the emergency department task force recommendations. Additional nurses, doctors and consultants are being appointed. The waiting time for the fair deal scheme, for example, has been reduced from 11 weeks to three to four weeks and the number of patients whose discharges are delayed has been reduced by over 270, which alone frees up 270 beds every day. New acute hospital beds have been introduced for the first time in years. Given the progress that is emerging and the further development under way, I hope that the proposed action can be avoided.

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