Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I could contest the numbers in relation to the ultrasound waiting lists at Louth County Hospital. I have been told they are considerably higher than ten. At this point, we do not have that one person who was actually working 100% on this and doing what is absolutely necessary from the point of view of due diligence and best practice supervising.

In fairness, I get that the Minister of State is providing information that has been provided to him, and that we have got closer to the answer. Initially, the answer I was being given was that everything is fine and this clinical specialist radiographer position is going ahead and the date is 30 November. However, my fear was that the position in Louth County Hospital, which is absolutely necessary, has been taken away and a means has been used to fill a different position in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda. We are going to talk about integrated management systems and so forth, but all I can say is that is absolute cover. I still hear that 30 November is the application deadline. I would love to see where this job is actually being advertised because those who applied for the initial job were basically told informally that it was not going ahead. However, they were given no absolute formal indication in relation to another job for which they could apply. The Minister of State said in his reply that:

The Minister has also been advised by the HSE that the clinical specialist radiographer will be primarily based at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda [that is the shooting match] with integrated managerial and clinical governance responsibilities across Louth County Hospital.

As I said, it is very easy to talk about integrated management. The fact is that is closer to the answer. I ask that the Minister of State go back to the Minister for Health. We are getting closer to an answer, but I think those who have applied for the job need to get it. I am not particularly happy that this position has been lost. It is not best practice. It means capacity is going to be lost in relation to providing ultrasounds in the Louth County Hospital in Dundalk, and we as a State will end up paying a huge amount of money to a third-party operator to deal with this backlog.

See this speech in context