Mary Henry (Independent)

I support Senator Finucane's call for a debate on accident and emergency services. The situation is truly as shocking as the nurses describe it. Hundreds of people are on trolleys every day but there are 1,000 fewer beds in the acute hospital service than there were at the end of the 1980s. There are hundreds of thousands more people in the country and they are older.

The Minister's solution appears to be to set up minor accident centres on a private basis. The people on trolleys do not have minor injuries. They are so seriously ill they must be admitted to hospital. What is being proposed will probably be counterproductive because it will take people away from general practitioners, where they should have gone in the first place. The Minister should come to the House to explain the plan she is bringing forward. I was told three years ago that the situation in St. James's Hospital would be sorted out in six months but I am now told by my colleagues there that it is worse than ever.