Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Over the past decade, anything the senior management team in Limerick Hospital has looked for, it has got. The Government has stood up to the plate on each and every occasion when a request has gone in, even to the stage of committing to build a new 96-bed unit, which I believe has gone out for tender and which will in real terms create 48 beds. That is happening. Everything the team has looked for, it has got, so I want to know where the problem is. The only way we are going to find that out is by somebody going in, drilling down, asking the hard questions and challenging people as to what is going on. At the end of the day, it is taxpayers’ money but, much more importantly, there are people who are very sick, sitting on trolleys. That is something none of us here will defend and nobody within the health service should defend. That is why questions have to be asked but they need to be answered.