Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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113. To ask the Minister for Health for an update on the HIQA report on Mid-West Emergency Health Services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34324/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It was expected that the final report regarding HIQA’s review of urgent and emergency care in the Mid West region would be provided to me by the end of May 2025. However, HIQA has recently updated me of a revised timeline for completion of the final report, which is now expected to be September 2025.

Overall, the HIQA work on the review of urgent and emergency healthcare services in the Mid West region has progressed very well and the workstreams undertaken by HIQA to inform the advice to me, as Minister, are complete. A critical dependency for completion of the advice and a final report from HIQA is the input from the national and regional demand and capacity projections being undertaken by the ESRI for the Department.

The first of these three ESRI reports, on projections of national demand and bed capacity requirements for public acute hospitals, was published on 28 May 2025. The second report, on future capacity requirements for GP services, was published on 18 June 2025. The third report, on older persons care, will be published shortly. The ESRI will also publish further regional analysis over the coming months.

HIQA have updated me that, given the ESRI regional capacity projections work will not be completed until later in the summer, this will impact on the timeframe for delivery of HIQA’s final report and advice.

The revised timeline for completion of the HIQA final report will therefore be September 2025, contingent on the completion of the ESRI reports within the expected timeframe.

The completed workstreams by HIQA include:

• review of the national policy landscape;
• analysis of relevant health system data;
• regulatory inspections of UHL and of other hospitals and services in the Mid West;
• substantial stakeholder engagement including a public consultation which received 1,121 submissions; and
• a number of international evidence syntheses targeted to address relevant research questions have been undertaken.