Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I ask the Deputy Leader to arrange for the Minister for Health to come to the House as a matter of urgency. We will not put it to a vote today but we expect that this issue will be dealt with in the earlier part of next week. As many will be aware, the board of Tallaght hospital is meeting this morning to consider the 300-page HIQA report which many of us have been reading about in the newspapers and hearing of in the broadcast media. We strongly object to the fact that the HIQA board will share this report with the media at a press conference at 12 o'clock, rather than circulate the report to Members of the Oireachtas. This shows the contempt in which these Houses are held. This is something the deputy Leader should raise with the Government and with her party leader and the Taoiseach to ensure the appropriate respect is given to the Houses, which represents the people when considering health service reports important to their care. Members will recall the Dublin county coroner's comments last year following the examination of the case of the death of Thomas Walsh, who was just 65 years of age. His death shocked and appalled everybody. The coroner wondered whether it would have been safer for Mr. Walsh to stay at home rather than go into that hospital.

Since then, no patients were meant to be kept on trolleys on corridors at Tallaght hospital. Can the Minister confirm for us that this is now the case at Tallaght hospital? The trolley watch website indicates this morning that there are 13 patients on trolleys there, and 278 patients on trolleys throughout the country. Is the recruitment moratorium too blunt an instrument and is affecting the day to day running of our emergency departments, whether in Tallaght, Sligo or the other hospitals throughout the country? Reports say that recommendations in the report hold consequences for accident and emergency departments all over the country. Will this form part of a centralisation agenda by the HSE and government to wind down more Roscommons throughout the country or will the resources be available to ensure that if standards are to be raised, this will be done and resources will be provided? We know already that 2,000 beds throughout the country remain closed, yet we have 13 people on trolleys in Tallaght and 278 on trolleys nationwide, in contravention of the much promoted report we expect from the HIQA today. Last week in the Dáil we heard the Tánaiste celebrate the fact there was a 17% reduction in the number of people on trolleys at accident and emergency departments throughout the country. I do not feel there is any cause for celebration for any Minister given that in the first four months of this year some 26,000 patients were being treated on trolleys. This is a serious issue and I ask the deputy Leader to raise it and seek an urgent debate in the House with the Minister.

Finally, new groupings of hospitals - trusts similar to the UK model have been suggested - are to be announced this week. I mention in particular the grouping related to the west, where we will have Galway, Portiuncula, Roscommon and possibly, Castlebar, in one group. A further grouping to the north west may bring Sligo and Letterkenny together. When the Minister comes to the House for the debate we seek, will he also be prepared announce a commitment to the continuation of services at each of these hospitals? Will he make a commitment that the proposed groupings or trusts will not be used as a vehicle to centralise services, taking them away from the communities that need them so much.