I wish to raise the issue of overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick, UHL. Since the Government took up office significant inroads have been made, including the provision of new bed blocks. Many good things are happening, but there is still a very acute problem with trolley numbers. On 26 January, this number again broke national records with 111 people waiting for beds. The situation has been described by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation's Phil Ní Sheaghdha as being "out of control." In recent days, Tony O'Brien, the former director general of the HSE, recommended that the mid-west, and UHL specifically, have an elective-only hospital. Sláintecare has recommended elective hospitals for Galway, Cork and Dublin. I am asking the Taoiseach, as helmsman of the Government, to try to push for the mid-west to have its own elective hospital to end once and for all the incessant waiting times crisis we have in the region.

Yes, in short I would welcome a proposal from the mid-west in respect of an elective-only hospital. In the health service generally, capital projects are moving too slowly. The elective process has gone on for five or six years through different working parties, in addition to people, consultants and administrators having different views. The Government has taken a decision to press ahead with elective-only hospitals for Cork, Galway and, latterly, Dublin. My advice to the Deputy is to look at State-owned land and to come up with a very clear focus for the region. We will then go after it and get it done.