Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are quite a few questions there. I will deal with the first question and the commentary on what the Taoiseach had to say at the start of this week. The Taoiseach was not blaming anyone for anything. What he did was point out the reality that at the most pressurised time of year in hospitals we need to ensure we have a full staff compliment. We need to ensure that people who have the responsibility to give leadership to their health teams within hospitals are there to do that when pressure is at its most intense and acute. We need to ensure that we do not have skeleton staff arrangements at times of the year when there is significant pressure and when patient care needs to be prioritised. That was the point he made. The point that the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, has reinforced was that of course there is a responsibility to ensure that rostering is in place to ensure the key people and team leaders as well as sufficient numbers of staff to support them are in place through the winter period. This requirement is equally important during the first two weeks of January, when we know hospitals will be under extraordinary pressure, as they are every year at that time. When Deputy Micheál Martin raised the issue of preparing for the winter pressures in healthcare and in hospitals, the Taoiseach, as always, addressed the issue directly and head-on.

We must continue to focus on capacity. This year we have added an extra 240 beds to the system and spend tens of millions of euro doing that. We need to continue to add capacity to our hospitals, but we also need to address the short-term challenges that we know are coming this winter. We need to ensure that our team leaders are in place to try to address them in person in hospitals at the times of the year when they are most needed, regardless of whether it is Christmastime. That is the point that he made, and he was right to make that point directly.

Deputy Calleary referred to the President of the High Court and his judgment, in which he said that defective procedures for recruiting doctors represent a danger to patients. He made this observation in a judgment ordering the suspension of a junior doctor. These comments have been widely reported in the media. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, is seeking an urgent response from his Department and the HSE on the circumstances of this specific case, the implications of Mr. Justice Kelly's judgment and the implementation of actions arising from it.

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