Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In February 2015, a 100-year-old woman was left lying on a trolley for 24 hours in Tallaght hospital. The case sparked outrage and anger. At the time the Taoiseach described the incident as “a truly scandalous situation”. We were told this should not have happened and the cry from the Government was one of never again. In November of that same year, a 91-year-old man spent 30 hours on a hospital trolley. The Taoiseach's response was that the then Taoiseach and the Minister for Health must take responsibility for the ongoing crisis.

Fast forward six years to today, on his watch as Taoiseach, figures show that in January alone, nearly 1,100 patients aged 75 years and over were lying on trolleys for 24 hours and more. The Taoiseach was right in 2015 when he said that one elderly patient lying on a trolley was scandalous. That 1,100 elderly patients were left waiting on a trolley in a single month is 1,100 scandals, one after the other. Numbers are very clinical. Numbers are not personal but every one of these 1,100 is a person, somebody’s grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, brother or sister; somebody's loved one.

This crisis has not fallen out of the sky. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has been ringing the alarm bell at the Government for weeks and weeks. It says were face an extremely dangerous situation and that in some cases it is the worst the organisation has ever seen. Yet the Minister for Health sits on his hands and the HSE fails to act. On 25 January, University Hospital Limerick registered a record number of people on trolleys for a hospital for a 24-hour period. That same day, trolley figures across the State hit a two-year high. Yesterday, in the Taoiseach's own neck of the woods, Cork University Hospital registered its highest number of patients recorded on trolleys since the trolley count began.

The big question that arises this morning is what exactly is the Minister for Health doing. What exactly is the HSE doing? The Taoiseach tells us we have to pay big bucks to get big results. The Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, is paid €225,000, Paul Reid of the HSE is paid €412,000 and Robert Watt who is the Secretary General of the Department is paid €298,000. I believe that when you pay people that kind of money you expect big results. You expect that the job is done. Yet promise after promise has been made but we still have a crisis in GP provision, we do not have enough inpatient beds or enough community recovery beds and the scandal of trolleys continues. Despite paying these three men almost €1 million between them, the root causes of hospital overcrowding persist.

Tá géarchéim tagtha arís leis an bplódú inár n-ospidéil. Ní rogha é easpa gnímh leanúnach ón Rialtas. Caithfidh an tAire cruinniú éigeandála de thascfhórsa na Roinne a eagrú.

Do the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health accept responsibility for the crisis in our hospitals? How is it that in the midst of this extraordinary crisis the emergency department task force has not yet met? I am asking that the Taoiseach instruct the Minister to ensure that the task force meets as a matter of absolute urgency.

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