The programme for Government claims that the Government is committed to sustaining the progress to date on waiting lists. That beggars the question of what progress. The number of children on the scoliosis waiting list is growing. December was the worst month on record for citizens waiting on trolleys and 2016 was the worst year on record.

The Government's inadequate response to all this is to build prefabs. The Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, grandiosely described these as temporary modular buildings but, regardless of how it is dressed up, a prefab is a prefab. It is already clear that the Minister will not have the nurses to staff them and the failure to retain and recruit nurses is one of the factors for the nurses' strike next week. Prefabs were to be a temporary measure in schools in our education system, yet over my years of public service I have noted that some of them have been in situ for up to 40 years. Is it not self-evident that the crisis in our health system is clear evidence of the failure of Fine Gael and its partners in government in Fianna Fáil to deal with the crisis in our health service and that the Government has failed in terms of the commitment in the programme for Government?

I disagree with Deputy Ó Caoláin. At 8 a.m. today the HSE TrolleyGAR system indicated that nationally 355 patients were waiting on trolleys in acute hospitals, which admittedly is too many, but it is down from 411 last week and 463 on this day last year. There is no doubt that the number is too high and the HSE's special delivery unit continues to work with all hospitals to identify what can be made to improve patient flow. Emergency departments under pressure this morning included University Hospital Galway and Cork University Hospital, which have both been identified as particular priority sites under the Department's winter initiative. Each site has a specific plan in place and is undertaking mitigating actions that can improve the situation. The Minister visited Galway last week.

Everyone in the country has this vision of prefabricated buildings as being what were supplied in schools 40 years ago and which rotted after a particular time. The Minister for Health visited Mayo General Hospital and saw the structure of the existing emergency department. In consultation with the staff, a modular building in close proximity to the existing emergency department presents the opportunity to relieve all the pressure and stress experienced and the staff will be very happy with that. The terms "prefabricated building" and "modular building" hark back to a time when prefabricated houses were provided throughout the country and prefabricated buildings were in schools. The world has changed and so has the quality of the accommodation.