Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Independent Group for tabling this important motion. There is real fear among people about attending emergency departments because they are looking at spending nights on trolleys and long waiting times in overcrowded emergency departments. In 2022, more than 12,000 people waited on trolleys in Cork University Hospital.

As for the Mercy University Hospital, its emergency department is in prefabs and Portakabins and has been for the past couple of years. How can it be right that a hospital would have its accident and emergency unit in Portakabins? I was in there in February with my own father, sitting on a plastic chair with cubicles between people. People knew me because I am the local Deputy and they asked me how it was allowed to happen that people are sitting in there. How is it possible in this day and age? It is a complete failure by the Government and the Minister for Health, who has not tackled this issue.

I commend Deputy Michael Collins, who has run buses to Belfast. Last month, I got a phone call from a lady who had been taken by Deputy Collins from my constituency to Belfast to get cataract surgery. She is a pensioner with many health issues and she was nervous about being so far away from home to get this surgery, but she would be waiting at least three years in Cork. In 2020, the Government announced with great fanfare that a regional eye care facility would be opened in Cork in 2021 but it is still not open. Why? It is because they could not get a microscope. Can you believe that? They could not get a microscope and now there are thousands of people in Cork who cannot get eye surgery and who have to travel to Belfast because of the incompetence of the HSE.

I will leave the Minister of State with this. I have made representations for a man who has had his operation cancelled three times in three years. He is in constant pain and unable to move, all because of incompetence..

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