I raise the issue of University Hospital Limerick, which I have done since I was elected in 2016 probably on a weekly basis through Questions of Promised Legislation, Topical Issues, priority questions and oral questions. There is no update or let up in the situation in the hospital. Eighty-six people are on trolleys today and 1,604 people have been on trolleys already in March, the highest ever. There is an average of 1,500 each month of this year. All those are the highest ever. The staff are exhausted. There are no proper facilities for getting people through the hospital quickly. Home care packages are pulled. Step-down facilities are pulled. What will the Taoiseach do? The Minister for Health has not stepped up to the plate. It is an ongoing issue every day. The people of Limerick and the mid-west region have been abandoned by the Taoiseach and the Government. I have raised this with the Taoiseach on a number of occasions.

We do not abandon anybody.

You have.

We have no interest in that and I think it is wrong to make that sort of personal comment about Government.

Why are there 86 people on trolleys?

I have spoken to HSE again recently. There is a significant crisis across the health service because of the impact of this variant. It is creating huge pressures on hospitals because they have to isolate more and more patients, 50% of whom do not come in because of Covid but transpire to have Covid when they are in hospital. That necessitates isolation and other procedures which makes it doubly difficult on the hospitals and emergency services. Then there is the problem of people leaving hospital having been officially discharged. They cannot move into respite or nursing home care because of those nursing homes being the centres of outbreaks.