In Limerick, women who need maternity services have long enjoyed an excellent system. It is called a midwife-led series of community clinics. Effectively, what it means is that a woman will deal with the same midwife during the entire course of her pregnancy. In the past 48 hours, without any notice to anybody, the HSE has pre-emptively decided to terminate that service, allegedly because of a shortage of staff. I cannot overstate the anxiety, angst and distress this has caused. I have been inundated with phone calls to my house, my office, etc., from women, some of whom have been pregnant for quite a while.

Is it possible to get this reversed? That is what people want to know and it is what people have asked me to raise here today. Will the Minister check out the situation and get back to me as quickly as possible?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I will come back to him on the specifics of the maternity services in Limerick, which I do not have to hand - forgive me - but there has been a very considerable increase in staff. The recent questions around staffing, posts unfunded or changes are something of a surprise to me in that context. I will clarify the issue both for the Deputy and for his constituents but there should be no basis for that given the very considerable increase in staff both in the mid-west in UHL, and in the maternity services. I will clarify that for the Deputy, of course.