Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For the second day in a row we have more than 700 patients who have been admitted to our hospitals and cannot get a bed. There were 57 yesterday in Letterkenny University Hospital and 47 today in University Hospital Limerick. For the second day in a row there are more than 100 patients admitted who cannot get a bed in that hospital. We have ambulances outside that cannot offload patients for the lack of hospital beds. We have elderly patients in my local hospital in County Donegal who have been unable to get a hospital bed and forced to wait for 36 hours in a hard chair without a second of sleep during that period. Staff and patients are suffering as a result of severe hospital overcrowding. All the while, the CEO of the HSE, the most senior civil servant in the Department of Health and even the fiscal council have warned that our health service has been underfunded for next year by the Taoiseach's Government. This is all happening under his watch, and is absolutely disgraceful. It is at crisis point and I ask that we have a debate before this House rises about what is unfolding in hospitals across the State.

See this speech in context