Galway University Hospital is at crisis point. This is a hospital that serves a core population of 800,000 people and six core counties. In addition, it serves a number of other counties, which means it serves a population of approximately 1 million people.

It is operating on code black alert, the highest emergency code, and at full capacity on an ongoing and prolonged basis. As a direct result, the obvious things happen. Elective surgeries have been cancelled. Large numbers of people have been left on trolleys, reaching a peak of 50 at Christmas. In addition and directly arising from that, there is an ongoing review of an operation performed in a ward. We are awaiting the review concerning the death on a trolley of somebody in their 80s. We are awaiting the conclusions of a report on spinal surgery, inappropriately carried out in some cases and causing premature deaths in two cases. We are still awaiting confirmation that all the recommendations of the Savita Halappanavar inquiry have been implemented.

In addition, very ill patients are walking out of casualty on a daily basis. There are people with mental health problems being shoved through casualty. Indeed, the lack of capacity in the hospital, which issue is not parochial or local because the hospital serves 1 million people, means it has been ranked number one on the risk register. Dr. Fergal Hickey in Sligo has said the abnormal has become the normal.

In addition, there is a report, independently commissioned by the Saolta group, on the accident and emergency department. The physical environment of the department is shocking and disturbing. It is unfit for purpose. A submission has been received from Saolta and the clinical director of the hospital stating the current ageing facilities in the hospital are not fit for purpose and do not provide an appropriate environment in which to safely manage the current and future care needs of the population of the region. I ask the Taoiseach not to stand up and give the answers I received from him and the Minister since I came here ten months ago. I do not want a list of the improvements he has planned. I want him to react to what I am being told by the clinical director and to what I learned from the external report, which states it is not just a matter of the accident and emergency unit because the hospital itself is not fit for purpose.

This is not a political agenda. The authorities want two things. They want immediate confirmation of investment in the accident and emergency unit to make it fit for purpose and, more important, they want confirmation of approval so they can proceed with examining priorities for a new hospital.

The system is failing. The system itself is ill, leading to people becoming ill and dying. I ask the Taoiseach to stand up and give a direct answer. This failure is as a direct result of the lack of investment by Governments driven by an ideology that public is bad and private is good.

I am not sure what the Deputy wants me to say in respect of that.

I will repeat it if the Taoiseach likes.

There are certainly elements of what the Deputy said with which one cannot disagree. In recent weeks, University Hospital Galway has reported very high attendance rates and a number of infection control issues. That is a fact. Consequently, the full escalation protocol has been in operation for some time. It is implemented on a regular basis. The HSE advises that there continues to be an emphasis on access to diagnostics and enabling prioritised discharges to address congestion at this hospital.

As the Deputy is well aware, significant projects completed in recent years include the clinical research facility, which I am sure she welcomes. Also included are the upgrade to the maternity unit and the cystic fibrosis outpatient department, both of which I am sure she also welcomes. Galway emergency department is one of the focus sites for the winter initiative. As part of that enhanced measure, 23 additional beds have been opened in Galway. They have made a difference, whether the Deputy agrees with that or not. A 75-bed ward block and an acute adult mental health unit are currently under construction, as the Deputy is aware. I am sure she welcomes that. They are expected to be operational later this year.

The programme for Government contains a specific reference to the emergency department. It was constructed in the 1950s and upgraded in the 1990s. To improve operational flow in 2005 and 2006, it was undertaken to create a "minors" area to enable streaming of patients. This is not satisfactory. I have said this in the House before. The Saolta group has advised that a cost–benefit analysis with regard to the emergency department project was submitted to the HSE at national level. The Deputy has quoted from it. The cost–benefit analysis is now being considered. It was accepted by the HSE's national capital steering committee at its meeting on 15 November.

The HSE has advised that capital funding will be put in the 2017 capital plan to commence planning and design and the new emergency department project remains a real priority for the Saolta group.

The acute medical assessment unit at UHG is a consultant-led service that opens on a day service basis. The unit takes all medical patients from the emergency department following triage. There is access to key services, such as diagnostics, to facilitate rapid decision making and so on.

The Minister for Health was due to visit Galway before Christmas, but it was not possible to do so. He wants to go there, and will be there in the next matter of weeks, both to look at the emergency department and at the possibilities that might be implemented in respect of better use of Merlin Park. Believe me, Deputy, however, that when one starts making major changes, it is not the politics that are the cause of the problems. The Minister will be down there very shortly to address the issue.

I am not sure what the Taoiseach did not understand about what I said. First, the Taoiseach had time to visit a private hospital in Galway before Christmas. Second, the Minister has failed to attend in Galway. Third, this issue is not about what I want. Let me cite the Saolta group again because this is what the management in Galway wants. It states that the ageing facilities at UHG are "not fit for purpose". We have crisis after crisis, and scandal after scandal. I am not interested in going into the details of those, but I am appealing to the Taoiseach. I do not believe what he is telling me. Neither he nor the Fine Gael Government has a grasp of the situation in Galway city, which represents a population of 1 million people. We are at crisis point. This situation is causing deaths and leading to ill health.

All I am asking the Taoiseach to do is to hear what I am saying as a mouthpiece for the clinical director, consultants and medical staff, who say that we are at crisis point. I did not quote the Taoiseach. I quoted from this independent report on the accident and emergency department and the scandalous, unsafe and dangerous situation pertaining. If the Taoiseach can nod to those words and yet read from that prepared script, there is something wrong with "new politics".

Hear, hear.

The Saolta group commissioned a report into the emergency department. That report, comprising a cost-benefit analysis, was accepted by the HSE last November. Now, the Deputy does not want to recognise the fact that a clinical research facility has been put in there. She does not want to recognise the upgrade to the maternity unit.

Stop.

She does not want to recognise that the cystic fibrosis outpatient department has been put in place. She does not want to recognise any of these things and instead she comes in here and blithely calls for a new hospital. She knows as well as I do that these things take time. I am saying to her that the emergency department in Galway, as I said before, is not fit for purpose.

The hospital is not fit for purpose.

I did not want to see a cost-benefit analysis to know that much. The answer to that is that one has to deal with that problem. Therefore, the Minister for Health is going to go down to University Hospital Galway very shortly both to look at the conditions of the emergency department and to discuss what might be possible to have put in Merlin Park.