Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will bring the Deputy's concern back to the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. I am delighted to hear that they both visited the hospital recently and have seen the progress. Attendances at all emergency department are hospitals have increased throughout the country. It is a very worrying trend so early in the winter. We are facing into the possibility of the winter flu and the vomiting bug. Luckily last year people did not present with those two conditions but already we are seeing the trends. Coupled with that, we are all conscious that more than 400 people presenting with Covid are in hospitals, including more than 70 in ICU. That also needs to be thrown into the mix and it has been very difficult. I join the Deputy and everybody the House in saluting front-line workers, dealing with this at the coalface.

To date under the winter plan, approximately 800 additional acute beds have been provided nationally on a permanent basis over the number available at the end of 2019. A total of 73 permanent sub-acute beds have been provided. As the Deputy will be aware because he has raised it with me many times, we have allocated considerable funding to home support to try to support elderly people to live at home, to age well and to try to avoid attendances at emergency departments. Notwithstanding that, we have seen a spike in the number of people who are presenting in hospital.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I know how important it is to him and to the people of Tallaght. I can assure him that the Department of Health and the HSE will continue to work with local hospital management to further improve patient experience in Tallaght.

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