Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The INMO is consulting its membership on the issue of industrial action in support of staffing levels that would be underpinned by legislation. Should the nurses decide to take action they will deserve the support of every health service worker, patient and relative who has had a loved one in a hospital and everyone who either looked on in horror or shook their head in sadness at the shocking overcrowding in our emergency departments over the new year. I have no faith in the Government to solve this crisis. I have no faith in the HSE to solve it. Only workers' action and other forms of pressure from below will achieve the changes we need to see, namely, more beds, more staff, better pay and a real properly funded national health service.

There were 170 patients in the emergency department of University Hospital Limerick on 2 January when a major incident alert in the context of overcrowding and patient safety was triggered. The cap on the number of patients in the emergency department, as agreed by the hospital with the local fire department, is 78. There were more than double that number in the emergency department on the day in question. How many other emergency departments are in breach of fire safety regulations as a result of the failure of successive conservative Governments here to resolve emergency department overcrowding? There was a fire in the emergency department at Cork University Hospital a week ago. Thankfully, it was put out relatively rapidly by a quick-thinking paramedic. How long will it take before a fire tragedy might take place in an emergency department somewhere in the State? This is an issue that needs to be taken very seriously. We should take the events at University Hospital Limerick and Cork University Hospital as a very serious warning signal on this issue.

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