Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We all know Brexit is on the horizon. We do not know the scale of what we are facing yet but that is no reason we should take our eyes off domestic issues. Healthcare and health services is the biggest issue we are facing into as winter is coming. Already, 6,386 people have been on trolleys and it is just September, with 531 people on trolleys right now in overcrowded hospital corridors. As the Taoiseach knows, I represent Tipperary and two of the hospitals serving the county, South Tipperary General Hospital and the hospital for the mid-west, University Hospital Limerick, are often - or nearly always - the most overcrowded in the State despite the best efforts of all the staff and management.

The Government seems to be no closer to getting to grips with health spending either. The Minister, Deputy Harris, who is not present, has also been deliberately avoiding scrutiny in recent months. He had the de Buitléir report last February but chose to release it over the summer in order, obviously, to bury it. Likewise, the HSE capital spending plan was buried by releasing it towards the end of the summer, nine months after the plan was in operation. Maybe the Government thought that these reports would go unnoticed. I believe it was cowardly behaviour by the Government, the Minister and the Department.

The Government claim that the HSE capital plan is not affected by the cost of the national children's hospital is incredible - it is all just profiling. The first test of this will be if projects are going to be delivered on time. I can tell the Taoiseach that, from speaking to numerous HSE officials, they are actually laughing at this plan. There is no hope of the commitments and the milestones being met. Second, there are glaring omissions in this plan. There is little mention of the very good national maternity strategy, which we collectively all support.

To refer back to the most overcrowded hospital, University Hospital Limerick, where is the 96-bed unit that was promised and that is absolutely necessary, as the Minister saw with his own eyes over the summer? This hospital suffers the worst overcrowding in the whole country. Figures from the Department of Health show that no other hospital spends as much on agency staff - €9 million in the first seven months. The staff there are so stressed and the staff in related hospitals in Nenagh, Ennis and St. John's likewise. There is a serious lack of staff. They are also clearly very upset across the country at the de factorecruitment ban that is in place for front-line staff, as well as other staff. We always hear from the HSE and the Minister that this is not a recruitment ban but it is, in effect, a recruitment ban. I can read out lists of people who cannot get jobs in the HSE and others who, despite actually being recruited, cannot commence because of this de factorecruitment ban. What does this say to the staff across the country and to all the patients who need their help?

I ask the Taoiseach the following questions. When will this de factorecruitment ban, that is affecting front-line staff and other critical staff across the HSE, in acute services in particular, be lifted and dealt with? Second, when will he commit to dealing with the outstanding and incredible issues that have been left in the mid-west, particularly at University Hospital Limerick, where there has not been a commitment in the capital plan to the much-needed 96-bed unit?

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