Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Louise O'Reilly for bringing forward the motion. I am disappointed that the Minister, Deputy Harris, is not here. While he was here at the start of the debate, he has now left. In fairness, this is a very important issue and he should have been here for the duration of the debate. I have raised the issues at University Hospital Limerick with the Minister on numerous occasions, but he has yet to turn up to address a Topical Issue Matter or a parliamentary question.

It is a damning indictment of our country that 707,000 people are on hospital waiting lists. Over 20,000 of those people have joined the lists since the Taoiseach took office. Unsurprisingly, these figures do not appear on the self-congratulatory posters or social media notices he produces on an almost daily basis. Fine Gael no longer has the option of passing the buck to Fianna Fáil, which caused the financial crisis. Fine Gael has had ample time and money over seven years in government to invest in change and assure Irish people of access to quality medical facilities. University Hospital Limerick remains in a ridiculous state of overcrowding. There are 31,117 people waiting for outpatient appointments while 2,805 are on inpatient waiting lists. It is ridiculous. To put these figures in perspective, Limerick city has a population of 100,000.

I hope the Minister will examine the issue of the full-capacity protocol which was designed as an emergency measure to deal with overcrowding. It results in patients being placed in inappropriate areas of hospitals, overcrowding on wards, the cancellation of elective procedures and aggressive discharging practices. The protocol was not intended to be used every day or to become the norm. While the protocol was used 30 times in 2011, the year Fine Gael took office, it was, unfortunately, used every single day in 2017. It has also been used every single day this year so far. That is simply not good enough. The Minister must come to the Chamber to tell us when the use of the full-capacity protocol will be discontinued in Limerick.

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