Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The budget has increased by 20%. In 2019, the hospital budget was €265 million. It is now €315 million. There has been a large increase of money, workforce and beds. In the emergency department, extra emergency medicine consultants have been sanctioned. Under the safe staffing framework for emergency departments, 21.5 additional whole-time equivalent nurses have been sanctioned for UHL and 19.5 of those nurses have already been recruited. Senator Gavan pointed out, at least technically correctly, that UHL did not receive any increase in the number of healthcare assistants for the emergency departments. What the Senator did not say is that the reason UHL did not get any more healthcare assistants is that it was already at the high level other hospitals aspire to. When the ratio was increased, it turned out that UHL was already at or above the increased ratio and was already at the safe staffing level, which is clearly an important part of this. We have invested across the group. There is a new injury unit in Ennis Hospital. A state-of-the-art complex was opened in Croom in 2021.

The motion calls on the Government to do more to alleviate the pressures we face today. It is all well and good for us to say we have added a lot of capacity, but critically it is not enough as patients are still, at times, receiving a level of service that is not acceptable to any of us. We have to keep going. The motion calls on the Government to continue to invest and we are doing exactly that.

The National Ambulance Service has a protocol we are aware of that was put in place for the medical assessment units in Ennis Hospital. I am delighted to be able to say it will be in place in Nenagh hospital in the coming weeks and we will also roll it out shortly thereafter in St. John's Hospital.