Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senators may have seen the report that the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, released today on the deficit of hospital beds across our health service. Right now, we are 1,000 beds short. The ESRI also recommends we add an additional 300 beds per year after that as well. It will come as no surprise to anyone from Limerick, given the horrendous state of the hospital for years now in terms of bed capacity. However, it is worrying. It is interesting to note that our bed capacity has increased in recent years but for decades it reduced. From the 1980s right through to 2011, each successive Government cut back hospital beds. Indeed, many people would argue the health service has never fully recovered from the horrendous cutbacks implemented by Fianna Fáil in the late 1980s. The Senators might recall that Fianna Fáil Deputies got elected on the back of posters across the country that said that "health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped". Excuse that last expression; it is what they used. The Government then implemented the most savage cutbacks of any Government ever in terms of health, which is saying something.

My concern is that we need to have a debate about this because our population is growing by 1% a year, the numbers of those over 65 are growing by 3.5% a year and we know we do not have enough beds right now. Over the past ten years, approximately 100 beds per year have been added. The ESRI is telling us we need 300 beds per year. It will require a lot more capital investment than the current Government has committed to. We need to have that conversation.

On one further point, when we talk about capacity, we also need to have a conversation about accurate numbers of patients on hospital trolleys. At 9.30 this morning, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, tells us there were 99 patients in University Hospital Limerick but the official HSE figure is 37. Yesterday, the numbers on trolleys were 98 versus 29. There is one and a half hours between those figures being taken; one was taken at 8 a.m. and the other at 9.30 a.m. I trust the INMO. I think those figures from the HSE are a work of fiction, frankly. We need to call that out. We know there is a crisis across our hospitals. The HSE needs to come to the table with honest figures about that crisis.