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

A look at this morning's trolley figures, which are provided by the HSE, shows that there were 272 patients on trolleys this morning compared to 373 on the same day last year - a reduction of approximately 100. Obviously, I appreciate that if a person is one of the 270 patients who are on trolleys - or a family member of such a patient - that figure is of no benefit because of the enormous distress and inconvenience that being on a trolley causes. I appreciate the very difficult working conditions which our staff in emergency departments have to endure, but a reduction from 373 last year to 272 this year - a reduction of more than 100 year on year - is quite significant.

I have been to South Tipperary General Hospital. It is certainly in need of very significant investment. Like many hospitals in the country there is a new section, which is very much up to standard, and an old part, which is very much not. The Department of Health is conducting a bed capacity review which will establish how many additional beds we may need across our acute hospitals. Building new hospital blocks and new hospital wings takes several years. Even just the planning, tendering and construction could take three to four years before any new blocks could come on train. In addition to that, the Department of Health is working on proposals to provide temporary accommodation in a number of hospitals, the like of which the Deputy has mentioned. It is of course just not good enough to provide temporary accommodation, it must be possible to staff it as well. This time last year, we encountered difficulty in staffing all our beds. That proposal is now being worked up by the Minister for Health and we will see if it is possible to put it in place later this year.

I will make a point on the figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation in respect of patients on trolleys in the first half of this year. Those figures were very interesting. They show an overall increase across the country, but huge variations from hospital to hospital. Beaumont Hospital and Connolly Hospital had the lowest number of patients on trolleys since records began and St. Vincent's University Hospital had the second lowest. This is despite two of those three hospitals getting no additional beds whatsoever, whereas some hospitals which got additional beds actually disimproved considerably. That demonstrates to us that providing more staff and more beds on its own does not work. As politicians and as people who make decisions on behalf of the public, we should all acknowledge this. Good clinical leadership is just as important if not more important. We need all of those things because constantly putting more resources, staff and capacity into a system which is not led or managed well will not be enough.

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