Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I welcome the pause in insourcing, but we have to ask why this is happening. I spoke to staff in a hospital in the midlands today. They told me they had a red escalation over the bank holiday weekend, which is unheard of in the middle of summer. It is something that usually happens in December and January. They have been told to get patients out of the hospital and free up operations and other elective engagements so that they can orientate staff towards the people in emergency departments.

There are 461 people on trolleys today - 461 people who were crowded into hospitals overnight with the lights on and did not get any sleep, etc. Some 50,000 hospital appointments have been cancelled so far this year. Over the past four years, 800,000 hospital appointments have been cancelled. Today, there are 800 vacancies for consultants. We have a major crisis in terms of resources in the hospital and that is why this is happening. It is not good enough to pause what is happening; we also need to get rid of the pay and numbers embargo on staff so that we can resource the treatment that needs to be delivered to patients.

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