Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I welcome the fact that 15 beds are coming into use in St. John's Hospital. They need to be up and running as quickly as possible, along with the additional nursing home beds. If management and consultants in Limerick and the mid-west region feel there are areas where there is a need for additional funding and resources, they should let us know. We are here to assist and work collectively as a group. I am aware of the difficulties of working in the hospital group for consultants, the medical team and nurses in Limerick and the mid-west. They work throughout the hospital group in UHL, Ennis, Nenagh, St. John's Hospital, Croom and the maternity hospital.

We all must work together to ensure we do not have a situation where there are 62 people on trolleys in UHL, as happened yesterday. It was the highest number in the country. There were 54 on trolleys in Cork. There is a continuing crisis because of the lack of bed capacity. The focus must be on addressing the short-term needs over the next number of months so everything is done to alleviate pressure in the ED. I admire the work the medical and nursing teams do with consultants in the University Limerick hospital group. The key issue is that people are made aware on time of whatever resources are required because my role as a public representative for Limerick is to go to the Government to ensure the resources are put in place.