Homeless numbers are also going up.

I better not call the Minister "Taoiseach" whatever I do. After a long and hard fought community-based campaign relating to South Tipperary General Hospital, we will, hopefully, see construction of a modular unit that will provide 40 additional beds for the facility. Planning permission was granted for this recently. Despite the many premature announcements surrounding delivery, this is a welcome development. However, what is deeply concerning to patients, staff and the community is the issue of recruitment and retention of staff in the unit. I have been told by one of my colleagues that 75 new staff, including nurses, will be needed. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, says that at the current rate of recruitment, it will be impossible to find the staff needed to allow that unit to open. Not only would this be a crushing blow but it would greatly increase the existing problems in the hospital, where I understand that there is a staff deficit of 35 nurses. This is causing awful stress to patients and staff alike and it is unfair to them.

The INMO indicated the total number of nursing staff was to increase nationally by 1,224 whole-time equivalents yet the latest data show only a net increase of 13 whole-time equivalents was achieved. That is not even 1%. It is appalling. It seems increasingly likely that it will result in a long list of wards and other spectacular new facilities around the country lying idle and empty due to an inability to get staff. One of those is in Cashel, where more than €21 million was spent, and it is lying idle. It is a pristine building which the Minister of Health saw.

The Government’s Bring them Home campaign, which was launched in July 2015, targeted 500 nurses and midwives employed in the UK. However, only 91 nurses were enticed to return to work in the Irish public health system and a staggering 40 of them left prior to fulfilling a year's service. What is wrong? It clearly indicates that something is profoundly wrong with the current system and that it will have a devastating impact on South Tipperary General Hospital's future. Will the Minister outline to me what measures the Government is taking to ensure that South Tipperary General Hospital and its modular unit will be targeted for adequate staff recruitment? I am very concerned. Unfortunately it is not the only issue of staff recruitment affecting the health infrastructure in our county. Information supplied to me in reply to a parliamentary question showed that Clonmel, Thurles, Cashel, Tipperary town, Nenagh and Roscrea each has only one emergency ambulance to cover night duty from Monday to Sunday each week. The reply given to me shows there is not a single rapid response vehicle for either day or night duty in Thurles, Nenagh, Roscrea or Cashel. It is appalling when the Government is talking about the recovery in the economy.

In January of last year I was informed by the National Ambulance Service that despite recommendations from its first ever capacity review on the urgent need to recruit additional staff, this would only occur over the next four years. It is now clear that as far as Tipperary is concerned, there has been zero additional capacity built into the ambulance service covering the county. It is also clear that no matter what area of healthcare delivery or staff recruitment one looks at, the Government is failing on all fronts.

I acknowledge the development of the modular unit that both Deputy Mattie McGrath and a number of other Deputies, both past and present, in Tipperary have been fighting for in the last number of years. To see it reach its final stages and be a provision of service in the Deputy's county is an excellent result. I congratulate the Deputy and his constituency colleagues including my former colleague, former Deputy Tom Hayes-----

A new coalition.

-----for the service they have given to their county. It is off the back of the growing and recovering economy that we are in the fortunate position to be able to increase the spend on health and to be able to provide the extra 40 beds in Tipperary that the Deputy is so good to mention. The €14.5 billion that was implanted in the HSE's budget this year is €608 million more than it was, year on year, and that allowed us to do a capacity bed review and to commit to 2,600 acute beds and 4,500 additional short-term and long-term residential beds of which the 40 the Deputy has just described are part.

I could go on and list all the other positive things we are doing in health but I think the Deputy wants me to assure him that the staffing required to make sure those 40 beds are operational will be put in place. I assure the Deputy the staff will be put in place. We are not in the practice of opening beds and not having staff to staff them. I was not aware the Deputy was going to raise the issue today so my information is not as accurate as it might otherwise have been. I will come back to the Deputy in the next number of days with the exact details of the HSE local area plan and how it is going to develop the opening of the 40 beds, what staff will be required and how we will recruit that staff to make sure we get it open as soon as possible.

The Government keeps making the same mistakes. It tried to bring home and recruit 500 nurses. It successfully recruited 90 and 40 left after a year. There is something appallingly wrong if we cannot get staff. The Minister cannot assure me the HSE will have the staff because they do not want to work in the health service. I salute the many who do. I walked into a GP's office in Clonmel last Monday week and she told me that after 18 years she could not wait to get out of the hospital because of the intolerable conditions and shortage of staff. I could point to example after example such as Cashel hospital, which is pristine. This year €600 million has been added to a budget that is expanding to billions but there is waste and people do not want to work. I met representatives of the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, this morning. It cannot get doctors or consultants. They are voting with their feet. Our brightest and best have been educated here. They had the passion and vision to go into all types of medicine. They do not want to leave but they are forced to leave because of the unorganised bedlam that is allowed to continue. The Government keeps throwing money at it and keeps paying architects to design new buildings and they are lying empty. In the Minister's county and all over the country, pristine buildings are unoccupied. They are unoccupied and unstaffed and it is costing a fortune to heat them and keep the lights on with no staff. It is a failed policy. There has to be a system that people want to work in. There has to be a system that doctors and nurses want to give their dedication to and serve our people in but the Government is not making the conditions right for them.

The Deputy does a real disservice to the thousands of women and men who man our hospitals and primary care centres and provide an absolutely state-of-the-art, excellent service, day in, day out, on a 24-7 basis. Our young nurses are the bedrock of our delivery of services and they work their socks off, which is why the Government has worked so hard to provide a pay agreement for the next couple of years to recognise the concerns they have raised over the past number of years. That is why the ballots will be taking place in the next couple of weeks. I wish everybody well. I do not accept that people are leaving in their droves.

They are.

People have pride in our health service.

I have the figures.

While we might stand in this Chamber and pick out the blatantly obvious concerns we have with regard to the delivering of the health service, it is not true to say the health service does not deserve the pride and respect of every Member of the House. I challenge the Deputy. If he has any bright ideas that might lead to the increased retention of staff let me hear them instead of just giving out about it all the time.