David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that all sorts of promises have been made in the past to deal with waiting lists. When the HSE was established and in 2005, the Taoiseach at the time stated he would eliminate waiting lists. In 2015, the Tánaiste, as the then Minister for Health, said that by the summer of 2015 under his watch no patient would wait longer than 18 months. In 2017, the then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, said he would halve the time people were waiting for more than 18 months. What has happened? The waiting list has gone in the wrong direction. There are now 165,000 people waiting over 18 months. The number has quadrupled since the then Minister made that statement. That is the reality and it is not all due to Covid.

I received a call earlier today from Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO. She is very concerned about what is happening in our hospitals. The number of patients on trolleys is at a critical level in Waterford, Galway, Cork and Limerick. She is calling for the emergency department task force to be convened immediately and for the Minister to take the reins and intervene by putting all options on the table, including leveraging private capacity if necessary. We must understand the scale of what is happening in the hospitals. Ms Ní Sheaghdha's call to me was urgent. She is very concerned because her members across the State are telling her that this is a real crisis.

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