Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator and also acknowledge our colleague, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. People step up to the plate and become a part of the Government. When that happens, their job is to deliver. Working constructively together, I believe that we are delivering. We are not where we want to be yet, but we are moving quickly in that direction. Considerable progress has been made. We had a single cath lab which was a point of failure that broke down regularly. We all remember there was a mobile unit three days a week for diagnostic services. Now we have two state-of-the-art cath labs. We have a service from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday to Friday, 24 new staff since 2023, and weekend service recruitment commencing this week.

Sometimes there is a misunderstanding and there are criticisms, but there are difficulties to be faced in progressing these issues. This week, UHW became one of the first hospitals under the pay and numbers strategy to have recruitment sanctioned. I thank the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, and the Taoiseach for all their work in supporting us. We are not there yet but we will get there. This is a good news story notwithstanding what people will say.