Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before I begin, I acknowledge our good friend and colleague, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd. I echo what the Cathaoirleach said about his immense contribution to public life in this country, which will have an indelible legacy. I welcome his guests.

I congratulate wholeheartedly our new Deputy Leader. I have no doubt he will bring his vast experience as a Dáil Deputy, Government Chief Whip, Minister and genuinely decent, kind, sincere person to the job of Deputy Leader. In the last number of months of this House, we need solid, dedicated and firm leadership. I know Seán Kyne very well and know that he will provide that leadership. I wish him well. We will all do what we can to help and support him. The Seanad is a great place and we can certainly make it even better by working together. I wish to highlight an important issue in the mid-west. The Deputy Leader, being from a neighbouring county, will understand the challenges and difficulties with UHL, where there are 100 people on trolleys every single day. About a month before the local and European elections, the Minister for Health announced he was sending HIQA in to carry out an emergency capacity review in the mid-west, yet we have had no timelines and do not know when the review is to commence and conclude. We do not know when to expect recommendations and when to expect those recommendations to be acted on. We were told we would have to wait until the report on other matters was concluded before the terms of reference would be put together. I do not know what the terms of reference are. Most of us here would be able to write the terms of reference at this stage, given our knowledge of the seriousness of what is pertaining in UHL.

I want to know what is going on with the HIQA review. The Minister needs to come in here and make a statement on it. We need to get the dates and timelines and know the terms of reference. We also need an overall update on the situation in UHL because the problem in the mid-west now is that, although there is a much good work happening in other parts of the healthcare system in the mid-west, the public have lost confidence in all of it because of what is happening in the emergency department in UHL. That is a great pity. It is a great pity for the thousands of people who are working with might and mane day and night to provide top-level care in the mid-west region because all of them are being tainted at this stage, and the public have lost confidence in the system. It is hard to blame them when we see what is going on.

What I want are statements with the Minister for Health on UHL. However, what we really need are answers on what is going on with the HIQA report that was announced. We were told HIQA was to carry out an investigation, yet we have not got a clue about what is happening.