Hospitals are under enormous pressure. Chronic overcrowding means constant chaos in emergency departments. We are all painfully aware of the year-round crisis, which sees hundreds of patients suffer the indignity of lying on trolleys. More than 600 people were on trolleys in our hospitals yesterday; the number is 528 today.

However, a not so visible but real consequence of overcrowding is the soaring level of hospital appointment cancellations. On the watch of this Government last year, 250,000 hospital appointments were cancelled, which is a record. In each case that represented a phone call to somebody who had waited with worry to be told that the care they needed had been cancelled. Some 800 chemotherapy appointments for children were cancelled.

Cancer touches all of us in some way during our lives. When somebody receives a cancer diagnosis, the world stands still. In that moment, life comes to a shuddering halt as all of the possibilities hit at once and the long hard road to be travelled then opens up in a flash. When a child receives such a diagnosis, these feelings are amplified beyond what most of us could even contemplate. A cancer diagnosis for a child must be utterly devastating for a family. The instinct of any parent in that situation is to go to the ends of the earth to care for their child. A parent wants to know that the system has got their child, that the system will catch them and that the system has their back. Let us just imagine the cancellation of a child's chemotherapy appointment. This is the cancellation of an appointment that a parent knows is a big part of their child's fight.

The Government has to stop this happening. To stop the problem of cancellations, the Government must solve chronic overcrowding created by its policy. Any of us who have seen the dedication of doctors and nurses caring for cancer patients are literally blown away. They live and breathe for their patients but we need more of them. We do not have enough healthcare staff right across the system. Dr. Peadar Gilligan of University Hospital Limerick said it most clearly: "There are simply not enough of us to deliver the ever-increasing needs of the population, yet we have an ongoing recruitment freeze imposed by the HSE due to lack of funding from Government.” That is it.

This dire situation is reflected in hospitals across the State. Overcrowding is linked directly to the lack of beds in the system. The Government has been told this repeatedly by professional bodies, patient groups and ordinary people themselves. Capacity is a big problem. Tá na hospidéil ró-phlódaithe go dona. De bharr sin bhí 800 coinne ceimiteiripe curtha ar ceal do pháistí anuraidh. Tá fíor-athrú inár seirbhísí sláinte ag teastáil go dona. We need a change of direction. Fine Gael have been in government for 13 years and for far too long. More of the same will not cut it. Our health services is crying out for change. To ensure that no child's chemotherapy appointment is cancelled due to a crisis in the system, the Government has to increase bed capacity. We need 3,000 additional hospital and community beds and well the Taoiseach knows it.

Then, crucially, we need to end the recruitment embargo imposed by the Government to relieve pressure on hospitals and to ensure that sick and sometimes very sick people get the care they need.

Hear, hear.

I first want to welcome the students from the politics and sociology department of Atlantic Technological University Sligo to the Dáil today who are guests of Deputy Martin Kenny. They are very welcome to Leinster House.

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising this important issue of wait times. It is a little disingenuous the way the figures have been presented this afternoon. These are not just my words. Regarding the press release the Deputy's party issued this morning suggesting a large increase in the number of hospital procedures cancelled in 2023 compared to 2022, which is on its website, the HSE specifically said, "Please do not compare one year with the last because it is not comparable." The HSE specifically said that it would not be reflective and should not be compared with 2023. It is important when we put information into the public domain that we are accurate in respect of it. The HSE put in writing to the party that comparing the figures that it gave to the party's health spokesperson for 2022 to 2023 is not an accurate way because of data collection issues. That is there in black and white for people to read.

Nonetheless, there are very important issues on waiting times in our health service. I am pleased that we are beginning to see wait times improve in the Irish health service. They are not improving in England; they are worsening. They are not improving in Scotland, they are worsening. They are not improving just up the road in Northern Ireland but are worsening. They have improved for the past two years here in this country but we have a long way to go and I fully accept that.

The Deputy talks quite rightly about the need for more staff but it is important for the Deputy to acknowledge that since the last general election in 2020, we have 28,000 additional staff working in the Irish health service. When the Deputy talks about recruitment freezes, pauses and the like, it ignores the reality that this year the Irish health service has money to hire 2,200 additional staff. To people watching in from home, I want them to know that. It is not true to say that the Irish health service will not hire more nurses this year, more doctors or more speech and language therapists: it will. When disability services are included, that number of 2,200 rises to just over 3,000. There will, therefore, be thousands more people working in the Irish health service, in hospitals, in the community and in disability services this year compared to last year and thousands more last year compared to the year before.

The Deputy has rightly pointed out the issue of bed capacity. Again, I agree that we need more beds in our Irish health service. Dr. Gilligan is entirely correct. That is why, again, since the last general election in 2020, we have opened 1,100 more beds and it is why the Minister for Health has funding for 1,500 additional beds as well.

She is absolutely right to raise the issue of cancer because there is not a family or community in Ireland that has not been touched by cancer. On that, I think we can all agree. It is important to say that while we have more work to do on cancer in this country, again there are encouraging signs when it comes to cancer survival rates. We have seen a very significant improvement in survival rates in Ireland right across all cancers and all ages. We now have 215,000 people living in Ireland following a cancer diagnosis compared to 150,000 in 2017.

We have seen cancer mortality rates decrease by 14% for men and 13% for women. That is a better improvement than the European average of just 10% and 5%, respectively. We have a plan to eradicate cervical cancer. Huge progress has been made and I note the Deputy's support in that regard for the HPV vaccine and the like. We can actually eradicate a cancer in this country by 2040, and the Minister for Health will publish the plan as to how he intends to do that this year.

I accept that wait times in Ireland are too high but I also have to say as a point of fact that wait times are improving and more and more people are now getting seen within the Sláintecare targets, to which all parties in this Dáil, including the Deputy's, have signed up. Bed capacity is growing, staff numbers are growing and the health budget is growing and will continue to do so. To any parent of a sick child and, most particularly, to a parent of a sick child with cancer, I want them to know that. I want them to know that we will continue to invest more in the services to make sure that their children have the best outcomes. I want them to know that they live in a country that has really good outcomes when it comes to cancer care.

I did not raise with the Taoiseach the issue of wait times-----

The Deputy did.

I raised the issue of cancellations, and 250,000, that is, a quarter of a million hospital cancellations, is a record. We do not have to compare it with anything. It is a record level of cancellations, and it included-----

It is not a record.

-----800 cancellations of children's chemotherapy appointments.

I am astonished by the Taoiseach's approach to this. It appears that he wishes to argue statistical presentational issues. He is not challenging, I am sure, the fact that there were a quarter of a million hospital cancellations. The Taoiseach accepts that, does he? Does he accept also that there were 800 cancellations of chemotherapy appointments for children? I do not care whether he thanks me. His view of me is irrelevant on this issue. I want it sorted out. It is not acceptable that children with cancer diagnoses have their chemotherapy appointments cancelled.

I raised with the Taoiseach specifically the employment embargo, which is real. He calls it, right enough, an employment control update and framework, but the embargo is real and it needs to be removed. If, as he says, he wishes the best outcomes for all patients, including children, he should lift the recruitment embargo. It is not complicated.

Leaders' Questions is not about the Deputy and it is not about me, and on that we can agree. I have nothing but respect for the Deputy, but that is not what this is about. When she decided this morning, in advance of coming in for Leaders' Questions, to issue a press release with statistics - she did. She can roll her eyes but she pushes it out and Sinn Féin Members will all retweet it.

But that is not the issue. The issue is people's appointments being cancelled.

Let the Taoiseach reply.

This is ludicrous.

Please let the Taoiseach reply.

No, it is not ludicrous. I am just asking that when the Deputy talks to the people at home, she gives them the facts. The HSE specifically asked Sinn Féin not to do what it did today in comparing the data. That is the first point.

The second point is that wait times and cancellations and how long it takes to see a doctor are all interlinked. What I want people at home, most particularly parents of children with cancer, to know is that they live in a country where the number of people working to look after their children is increasing, where the number of beds available for their children's care is increasing and where the budget for the health service to support their children-----

And where there are a quarter of a million cancellations.

-----is increasing.

A quarter of a million.

These are important facts, and we cannot just seek to exploit every single challenge. More children are being treated and more money is going in. When you talk about a recruitment embargo, you have to point out that 2,200 more staff will be hired this year.

The only thing that vanished-----

So Peadar Gilligan is wrong.

That is one third the number for previous years.

I would like to know why yesterday, after I raised the issue of Sinn Féin's alternative budget for health, it disappeared and vanished like Shergar from its website.

No it did not.

It did not.

More misinformation.

I have a copy of it here. This is Sinn Féin's commitment to the Irish people. Why did Sinn Féin take it down yesterday? Parents need to know-----

We are talking about children with cancer.

-----and have every right to know that the Deputy's party provided for less money-----

No we did not.

-----for their children's healthcare than our party did. Sinn Féin should put the plan back up on its website.

We provided for €1 billion more, and you know it. That is a terrible answer to people who are having their procedures cancelled.

Please, can we-----

Absolutely.

It is shameful of you.

You are telling lies about Sinn Féin's budget.

You are telling lies. It is ridiculous.

Deputy Doherty, you are not the leader of the party.

I understand that-----

This is Leaders' Questions. You are not the leader.

-----but we talk about misinformation in the public, and the Taoiseach is doing that now.

Please, would you-----

We had Helen McEntee doing it last week. It is a new tactic with Fine Gael because it cannot defend its record.

Deputy, we are returning to the strategic heckling approach. Please do not. Please stop heckling.

It is pathetic and it is beneath the Taoiseach.

If the Government side would stop heckling as well, it would help.

I call Deputy Bacik.