Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Cathaoirleach will probably have heard by now that there was a serious bus crash in County Limerick earlier and 15 children have been brought to University Hospital Limerick. I know he will join with me in wishing them and their families well. We are hopeful from the reports we have heard that most will be fine. I am raising this issue because I was going to raise the issue of University Hospital Limerick on the Order of Business.

The Leader will not be aware that a strike was due to take place in the hospital today, which was only called off at 5 p.m. yesterday because it was only then that hospital management agreed to attend the Workplace Relations Commission. Can we believe that in this day and age the hospital would wait that long? I understand members of the nursing unions and the IMO also have strike plans.

The hospital has the worst record in the State for trolleys. Some 1,003 patients were on trolleys in the month of January. It is a national disgrace and a horrific reflection on the failure of the Government to deal with the crisis for seven years. Each year it gets worse. Whenever we raise the issue, the Leader tells us how much we are spending on health. The new system of health accounts provides data which the Nevin Institute has analysed. It shows that our percentage of GDP spent on health is less than countries like Holland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Germany and Belgium. Alarmingly, we are spending twice as much on private health care because of the ongoing crisis in our hospitals.

I am very close to the staff in University Hospital Limerick from my time as a union official and I can tell the Leader that the staff across all grades are at their wits' end. They are in despair. I want to know how the Government can reconcile the €350 million in tax cuts in the budget, which primarily benefit the better off, with the €881 million deficit that the HSE is now facing for this year. I call on the Leader to bring the Minister for Health to the Chamber as a matter of urgency. If this issue is not dealt with once and for all and University Hospital Limerick is not given the recognition and funding it needs to deal with the crisis, the people of Limerick will suffer.Today I am thinking about those children in particular queuing in ambulances. By the way, we do not even have 15 ambulances in Limerick city. There is a crisis and it needs to be dealt with.