Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was Minister for Health from 2000 to 2004. Some 1,600 extra beds were provided between 2000 and 2005. That occurred under my watch. Contrary to what the Minister, Deputy Harris, has been saying on the radio, there was massive investment in acute hospitals at that time. I will leave that to one side because people are interested in the issues we are facing here and now.

I will explain why I have said there is a lack of urgency. Last summer, Letterkenny University Hospital made a submission to the HSE and the Government for an extra 20 beds at a cost of €1.8 million. It did this last summer so that it would be ready for Christmas and the winter initiative. It did not receive a reply. Deputy McConalogue raised the matter with the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Harris, and as a topical issue, but no action was taken. As a result, there are 36 people waiting on trolleys at the hospital for admission today. Last week, Letterkenny University Hospital had the unenviable claim of having the highest number of people on trolleys - 45 - which is an illustration of how chronic this issue is. I understand there were 2,000 people on trolleys at the hospital in 2016. According to Deputy McConalogue, that figure increased to 5,000 in 2017. The hospital had a solution and it made a submission, but it did not receive a response. When Deputy Kelleher raised this matter at the health committee some months ago, he was assured that things would be looked after and that we would not have record numbers of people on trolleys. We are beating those records every year.

The Taoiseach and his Fine Gael colleagues have been in government for seven years. It is about time they took responsibility for their time in government in respect of issues like this. The failure to respond to cases like Letterkenny resulted in the exacerbated crisis we witnessed this Christmas. There are other examples across the country of submissions being made to the Minister in plenty of time. Hospitals sought funding to try to alleviate the worst of the crisis but they simply were not responded to. The Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Harris, were alerted to the Letterkenny submission but there was no response to it.

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