Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate his personal connection as his wife, Dr. Mary McCaffrey, is an obstetrician. He is very much aware of the hospital and how it dates back to the 1940s. This has been an incredible investment which I want to acknowledge. I refer to the numbers that he has mentioned here whereby there has been a more than 50% increase in budget to €126 million. That is an incredible increase but it just shows that was so overdue. We now have over 1,000 people working in our hospital. We have excellent healthcare staff who work to the highest standards but, again, they work in facilities that date back to the 1940s. This new 50-bed block has been an absolute wonder and will transform patient care for nearly five counties and a catchment area of nearly 400,000 people.

Again, I wish to refer to the ED and I see that the timeline is 2027. There are people who are on trolleys; we have paediatrics who do not have enough space or capacity within our hospital; and in 2023 there were 30,000 admissions to our ED of which 6,000 admissions were for paediatrics. There is no space for triage when it comes to paediatrics in Portiuncula hospital. I say to the Minister of State that we need this faster, we need an acceleration and I need his support on this.