The latest figures today from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation show there are 518 people waiting on trolleys in emergency departments throughout the country, with 54 people awaiting admission to University Hospital Limerick. Again, we are looking at a serious situation in our emergency departments. It is reaching critical levels and heading close to the record-breaking 601 figure of December.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, predicted that the situation would worsen before it gets better. Given that the emergency department task force has only met three times will the Taoiseach indicate whether there is a need to accelerate the legislative proposals in the health arena, in particular the health information Bill and the health reform Bill? Will the Taoiseach outline what plans the Government has to accelerate legislation, particularly legislative interventions around the fair deal scheme that could create the environment to allow quicker discharge from hospitals, thereby freeing up capacity within the emergency departments? What are the Government's plans for the crisis?

As Deputy Martin is aware, these are important issues. The legislative programme has been published from here to the end of this session. It includes 41 Bills and many of these are in the health area. Beyond the legislation, action is required. As the Minister has outlined on a number of occasions, the situation that we find is not satisfactory.

Clearly, delayed discharges are having an impact on admissions to hospitals and therefore there are trolleys in corridors and so on. I have said before that an extra €25 million was allocated this year to deal with this as well as 300 extra approvals under the State nursing home support scheme. The waiting time for approved funding has dropped but it is still not satisfactory or where it should be. A further 50 beds have been secured from the private sector. Extra beds are to be brought in on a phased basis in Mount Carmel Hospital from the end of March. At the end of November last year there were 22,000 people in receipt of financial support from the State, 602 people had been allocated funding and 1,416 applications for the scheme were in progress. As of October a total of 8.5 million home help hours were issued to 46,600 people, but this is a growing cohort, as Deputy Martin is well aware.

Deputy Martin referred to the question of accelerating the legislation. The Minister has set out his priorities in terms of action and legislation and we try to follow that through as expeditiously as we can. I will advise Deputy Martin of the progress in respect of that legislation.