Last Thursday night, I attended, with my colleague Councillor Pat Balfe and Members of this House, a meeting organised by the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, and other unions about very serious staffing and patient safety issues at Naas General Hospital in Kildare. We were told that admissions into the emergency department were already 10% above this time last year. There has been a 28% increase in over-75s attending the ED, ambulance admissions are up by 13% on this time last year and it is now not unusual to see over 100 people in the emergency department at any one time. Staff are at breaking point, saying that the hospital is too small for the population it serves, with every corner and nook of the hospital now being used for patient care.

Time and again, staff stood up to say that the hospital was dangerously over capacity and that both staff and patient safety was being compromised. Will the Minister respond to these genuine concerns? What plans has her Department to provide additional staff to Naas General Hospital? No staff member at the meeting wanted to contemplate what could happen to patients if this serious problem was not addressed.

I thank the Deputy. Naas is an important model 3 hospital. It has had a bigger staff uplift than most other hospitals; it has had a 40% uplift in staff since 2020. That is even in circumstances where it has a very high proportion of agency staff. Naas is one of the hospitals where we should be targeting the new graduate recruitment in particular to make sure that it is not dependent on agency and that it has permanent staff, but there is a very significant uplift in permanent staff.

I would also like to highlight and compliment everyone in Naas for the fact that, over the last ten days, there have been seven days in the green threshold, which is the safe emergency department. That is due to their work. There is a very significant increase in staff and they are maintaining a very safe hospital, and that is to their credit.