Everyone, regardless of where in Ireland they live or how much is in their pocket, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect when they are sick. Everyone deserves to have timely access to the medical treatments they need. I know the Taoiseach appreciates that, but his Government’s policies are hurting people in hospitals, not helping them. I am talking about the current HSE recruitment freeze, overcrowding, long waiting lists, the trolley crisis, a retention crisis and a lack of community supports for those discharged from hospital. The list goes on.

Every week, we all hear healthcare horror stories. We hear from patients detailing awful experiences in hospital emergency departments; working people worrying about healthcare access for older parents or younger children; people with complex medical needs who are afraid of getting sick if they go into hospital; and front-line medical workers who are exhausted and worn out, looking to greener pastures in Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere.

Yesterday, my Labour Party colleague in Limerick, Councillor Conor Sheehan, shared the recent awful experience of his grandfather, Gerry Mullins, at University Hospital Limerick. Last Thursday, on the advice of Mr. Mullins's GP, his family brought him to UHL emergency department to seek treatment for an ulcer in his leg. What followed his arrival offers a desperate insight into the reality of emergency healthcare in Ireland. Upon discovering that his ulcer had become septic, the overworked staff at UHL began to treat Councillor Sheehan's grandfather, who at that point had become extremely unwell. However, over the course of the emergency treatment while very unwell, he had to spend four days on a trolley. During that time, Conor Sheehan and his family witnessed frenetic scenes at UHL, with multiple vulnerable patients exhausted, agitated and having to wait on trolleys. The nursing and medical staff are chronically overworked and overburdened. The staff at UHL deserve so much more than to have to work under those conditions. Patients at UHL and their families deserve better, too. We know this is not an isolated case. I express my sympathies again to the family of 16-year-old Aoife Johnston, who died so tragically from meningitis at UHL in December 2022.

Conditions in our hospitals have major ramifications for health outcomes. The INMO tells us it takes just six hours on a trolley for a person’s long-term health outcomes to decline. There is no more give in the system. It falls to the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and their colleagues to address the crisis, with the INMO telling us that 1,552 people have been on trolleys in UHL alone since the beginning of January. Across the country, so many medical professionals are working through yet another winter in impossible and often dangerous environments. All that is achieved by miserly recruitment freezes is to put more pressure on services. Will the Taoiseach end the damaging recruitment freeze, address the trolley crisis and ensure our hospitals are safe? What will he do this winter to address the healthcare needs of the people of Limerick in the context of the ongoing crisis at UHL?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that there are far too many people in Ireland waiting far too long to see a specialist or get the operation they need, and that our emergency departments are very busy at the moment and that is putting staff under a lot of pressure. I am really sorry that Mr. Sheehan's grandfather had the experience that he did. It is not acceptable that should be the case.

It is important, though, to put on the record of the House that there has been phenomenal additional investment in health services under this Government. Since 2020, only four years ago, we have recruited 20,000 more staff, with 1,000 more consultants. We are now in the top five in terms of practising nurses per head of population in the OECD. That investment is making a difference. We see significant overcrowding in our hospitals this January but it is not as bad as we saw in previous years. That is, at least in part, down to the extra beds, extra doctors, extra nurses and extra staff. We saw last year that waiting times for patients fell. For two years in a row, we have seen waiting lists fall. They peaked after the pandemic, but have been falling since then. I believe this year will be the third year in a row in which we will see the number of people waiting more than ten to 12 weeks fall. That is a not insignificant achievement. North of the Border, across the water in the UK and in most developed countries in the world they are seeing waiting lists rising, yet for Ireland waiting lists have fallen for two years in a row and will fall this year for the third year in a row. That is down to the phenomenal work of the people who work in our health service and also the massive additional Government investment that has been put into the health service in the past three or four years.

With regard to the recruitment embargo, it is important to say what that actually means. What it actually means is that the HSE can hire an additional 2,000 staff this year. We have had a big increase in the number of staff in the HSE and it can hire an extra 2,000 staff this year. What we cannot have is what we have seen in the past, that is, the HSE getting approval for one group of staff but not hiring them and hiring a different group of staff instead. We have to put some decent control on this. The recruitment embargo, as it is described, actually means the HSE can hire 2,000 extra people this year, however. Of course, it does not apply to graduate nurses and midwives, for example, or to consultants or GPs.

I thank the Taoiseach for his words for Conor Sheehan. I absolutely agree with him regarding the immense hard work and commitment of medical staff throughout the country but he has given me a standard response on the recruitment freeze. The reality is that lifting the freeze for certain contracts and grades will fix nothing. It will not entice healthcare professionals back from Australia, Dubai or Britain. It is an indictment of the Government's healthcare policies that even now, even with the improvements listed by the Taoiseach, Conor Sheehan's family's story is not unique; it is replicated across the country. It is an indictment that we have come to accept that long waiting lists in hospitals are somehow normal. People go to hospital to get better. Hospitals should not be a place where conditions will worsen while people languish awaiting a bed. Our healthcare staff should be treated with respect and we should see the full recruitment freeze lifted across all grades, as our healthcare staff are seeking. We need to fix things. The Taoiseach has not addressed the issue relating to UHL. That is a particular stain on the healthcare system. I again ask the Taoiseach what he will do for the people of Limerick this winter.

Again, for the information of the House, we hired an extra - and I mean extra - 1,019 medical and dental staff last year. We hired an extra 2,100 nurses and midwives last year and an extra 929 health and social care professionals. Yes, there are lots of people coming and going - we have an international labour market when it comes to healthcare - but we are doing pretty well in terms of recruiting extra staff for the health service. The HSE will be allowed to hire an extra 2,000 staff overall over the course of this year. People describe that as a recruitment freeze. Having laid out the facts, people can decide for themselves whether that is an appropriate term to use.

With regard to Limerick, 150 extra beds have been added in the mid-west under this Government, most of them in Limerick. Another 96 are under construction and will come into commission in the new year. Also, a new private hospital is under construction, which will help in terms of the bigger picture, and there is investment in Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's hospitals and community services to take the pressure off the main hospital in Dooradoyle. As we know from Waterford hospital, Connolly Hospital in my constituency, which is a great hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital and hospitals all over the country, it is not just about additional resources, staff and beds; you need good clinical leadership and sharp management too.