Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There were just under 500 people on trolleys in our hospitals this morning, which is a high number and is not acceptable. It has a significant impact on their patient experience and also makes things very difficult for staff. Thankfully, most of those patients will be in beds by this evening. The level of overcrowding we have seen in our hospitals this January, thankfully, is considerably lower than was the case in previous Januarys, in part because of the additional resources provided by the Government, including beds and staff. The budget for the health service has increased substantially for this year. The HSE will be able to hire 2,000 extra staff on top of the number of staff it had last year.

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