Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sometimes we get bogged down and lost in numbers, statistics and figures. We hear of millions and billions. I listened earlier to a report from Zara King on Virgin Media. It frightened me to my core and angered me. Many of us have elderly parents who could be in the position she described. Ms King wanted to illustrate that a particular lady was active and how healthy she was when she got a tummy bug and got sick. She was sick with her stomach. She went into the hospital on 3.30 p.m. on a Monday and was left sitting on a chair for two days. On Wednesday afternoon, she was finally allocated a bed. The lady died on Thursday morning at 6 a.m. after taking a turn overnight. The family do not know how she died. They do not know what happened to her and they are stunned. This lady died in the first week in October, only two weeks ago. The family are asking how their mum went from being a vibrant and healthy 78-year-old living her life, to be gone with no explanation. The only thing they know for sure is that she was sitting on a chair for two days in an emergency department. While she was there, her family were with her and witnessed multiple instances of older people on lines of trolleys through the hospital. They told the story of one man who needed help to go to the bathroom. He did not get the help he needed and because of bad health ended up in an undignified situation in front of a lot of other people. How can we stand over this? How can we stand over a health service that is in crisis?

I will raise another important issue. This week we met the hugely impressive Stuttering Awareness Mental Wellbeing group, which is supported by Deputy Mark Ward who was in the Chamber earlier. Members of the group spoke about the devastating effects of stuttering on children and young people until they received help and support. They said one thing that would make a massive difference to children who stutter and struggle is early intervention. Speech and language is the one thing that would transform their lives. Those are not my words. Those are words from a book, of which I am sure the Minister of State will receive a copy.

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