Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)

The issue of University Hospital Limerick is very concerning for everyone. While I am not from Limerick and it is not in my area, I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy Boyd Barrett that there is an artificial dumbing-down of figures of employment. It is like a puzzle, trying to figure out what is actually happening with recruitment in the HSE. It is completely different from what is being portrayed in the public eye.

Reconfiguring all the hospitals and making centres of excellence in Galway, Limerick and wherever else was a great plan, but it never really got to the place where things were being done about it. We are still awaiting a paternity unit in Galway. We are looking for a paediatric unit and a new emergency department. Although a temporary emergency department was built approximately four years ago, we still have not gone for planning permission for the new emergency department. We need a new cancer hospital, beds and investment of approximately €1 million in infrastructure alone on the site if we are to be serious about having a centre of excellence in Galway to serve more than one million people in the region. It is not happening at the pace we need it to happen, however.

The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, was in Tuam when we opened the community nursing unit. I said to her in the Dáil before that it is nearly a year since she was there but half of that community nursing unit is still not open because of something going on between HIQA and the HSE. There are 25 empty beds in that place, with probably 25 people in Galway hospital holding onto beds. This is a year later. There was a total of €17 million investment, including €7 million investment from a trust. That is what we are delivering to people.

Day centre services, which were in the old nursing unit in Togher More and were waiting to go into the new place, still have not commenced in the new community nursing unit. The reason given for this is that there is some problem with a door. For God’s sake, we need to have a wake-up call about how we are doing our business and the processes by which we are doing it because we are spending a hell of a lot of money on absolutely nothing.

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