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

I am still shocked by the overcrowding in our hospitals. I am also shocked that it has taken and is taking so long to resolve it. The figure of 100,000 the Deputy gives does not refer to people who spent the night on a trolley. That is a count done at 8 a.m. and could include people on a trolley for fewer than nine hours, maybe even one hour or two hours. The figures collated by the INMO by its own explanation, on its website, include patients who are not on trolleys but are in the wrong sort of bed in, for example, an overflow ward or a unit that should have 12 beds but now has 14 and so on. As more categories of patients are added to that count inevitably the number will go up. That is how these things work.

I very much agree with what the Deputy said, there are many good things happening in our health service and we should recognise them. Life expectancy in Ireland is improving, we are living longer than ever before. That is because of improved public health and a better health service. Irish people when asked about their health rate it as being better than in any other country in the western world. Death rates from cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke are falling. Those are real positives too and would not be happening if we did not have a well-functioning health service at least in some parts.

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