Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I want to congratulate the Minister on her new role and, indeed, the Minister of State. I have full confidence she will do a great job in this Department. It is a tricky Department but it matters to all of us. Everyone goes through life's processes and as we all care for older people and for communities, it is a very important Ministry.

Unfortunately, in my county, far too many older people fear entering the acute healthcare system because University Hospital Limerick, UHL, is the point of access to all of that. In 2009, a woeful political decision was taken to close 24-hour accident and emergency care in Ennis general hospital, Nenagh Hospital and St. John's Hospital in Limerick city. That has haunted that region ever since. To reiterate, people are afraid to present at UHL because they will probably end up on a trolley and many are not even that fortunate. They could be left overnight, sometimes for a 24-hour period in an armchair. It is not right. At the moment, what exists in the mid-west is a healthcare apartheid. It is not fair. It is not comparable to any other region in this country and it is going to need to be fixed.

I am glad that the previous Government of the Thirty-third Dáil commissioned HIQA to look at the UHL scenario to see if the region needed a second accident and emergency department. It does, and in my belief, I have heard this said by many Deputies in the House in recent weeks, there is no need for some in-depth HIQA analysis of this. The proof is in the pudding several times over. There are many good, positive outcomes in UHL every week but there are also very negative outcomes and there have been deaths. If you ask me, those deaths underwrite the need to have a new accident and emergency department in the mid-west region. I am fully supportive of the campaign for that at grassroots level. I commend in particular the friends of Ennis general hospital group, led by Ms Angela Coll, who have been briefing the Minister's officials and HIQA on the need for this to happen.

We all know the mid-west region comprises counties Clare, Limerick and Tipperary, which my colleague, Deputy O'Meara, represents. It is a huge region. That region had five accident and emergency departments until the 1980s. Now, all of that population goes to one accident and emergency department and yet the population has increased. There are half a million people living in the mid-west and they all go through one accident and emergency Department. There are 1 million people living here in the greater Dublin region. They have a choice of eight accident and emergency departments. There is no equality here. We need to grasp the nettle in the coming months.

In the Minister's tenure in this Dáil term and this Government term, there will not be a new hospital built in the mid-west. We could start bricks and mortar but it will not be built or completed. Someone has to throw the ball in, however. I am asking that when this report comes before the Minister's desk and when it comes before Cabinet., she gives it the best possible shot forward. This hospital has to be in the mid-west, and I believe it has to be in County Clare.

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