Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her generic response. I remember the Hanley report and the Teamwork report. They were the reports that were put in place to justify creating the model 4 hospital in Limerick. The issue was the resources and the capital required were never put into it. The amount of funding for staff such as doctors, nurses and health professionals was never in tandem with what was required. It has now come to a crisis.

Will the Government publish the report on the inequity in the funding of acute hospital groups in Ireland by Dr. Anne Dee, which has been buried by the HSE? It shows the discrimination that is happening to all of us in the mid-west. Will the Government publish it? It is a couple of years old but it still stands. It was buried. If the Government does not publish it, I will publish it and put it out there. Will the Government please publish it? It statistically shows how we are being discriminated against.

The situation in the mid-west needs direct intervention now. Can the Minister imagine what we are facing into over the winter? We need more staff. The recruitment embargo exists; it is real. I could name tonnes of people who have been offered jobs but cannot take them up. Will the Government please make a direct intervention to ensure those staff can take up their jobs? Will the Government please ensure we can get the capital resources needed, such as the scanner I outlined? Will the Government please ensure that in the budgetary process that is coming forward, the mid-west hospital group will not be discriminated against as it has been?

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