Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know that, but the situation has not been resolved and we need urgent action. Obviously, when the House rises, the situation is not going to be improved.

On an important point, the skillsets simply are not there. We know the answer we have been getting, which is that the jobs have been advertised and so on. Unfortunately, the current pay thresholds mean the people have to come in from abroad, if we are going to get them at all. The treatment purchase fund is also an issue we have raised in our motion as it would allow those on the kidney transplant list and the pancreatic transplant list to become eligible for the treatment abroad programme.

The most amazing situation dealt with in our motion is that those who are on the transplant list are being instructed to go to accident and emergency, which is hard to believe. These people are very sick and vulnerable to infection. For the HSE and the medical services to be instructing them to go into harm's way by telling them to attend the emergency wards is entirely wrong. They never had to do this before and, in fact, it is the exact opposite of what they had to do and what they should do. I ask that the Minister would come to the House to explain why our transplant patients are being put in harm's way.