Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise one of my favourite subjects which is University Hospital Limerick. Some 15,600 people have been waiting on trolleys so far this year. This is the highest number in the country followed by Cork University Hospital which has over 10,000 people on trolleys. I encourage the Minister for Health to come to the Chamber to have a debate on this issue.I want the Minister for Health to come in here for a debate because we are heading into the winter. We need to look at reality and at ways to resolve this issue.

The National Transport Authority currently has a public consultation on proposed cycle routes in 22 counties, but not many people seem to know about it. On the website there are very few submissions because it has not publicly advertised the fact that these routes are there.

In my city of Limerick, I think there are about ten proposed routes. I was looking for something else recently and discovered there was a proposed cycle lane on a street not far from my house. I have had elderly people calling me on the phone. One man whose wife is in a wheelchair asked that if they completely remove his parking, as they propose to do, how he will put his wife in the car. There are many people concerned. It has caused huge upset to some older people.

I am not against cycling. It is a very proactive thing but people did not know these routes were being proposed so no submissions were going in. I think the transport authority and CycleConnects wanted very few submissions so they could go to the local authorities and say they had advertised it and nobody commented. It is inappropriate that they have not run public awareness campaigns in the different areas to highlight this. These should be redrawn and re-advertised to let people know.