Hospital Facilities
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17
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Dee Ryan (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

The Minister is very welcome back to the House. I thank her for coming in to take my questions on this matter. She knows, as we all do, the importance of this issue for the mid-west. At the outset, I thank her for the wonderful news she gave us yesterday. We have had many sad days in healthcare in the mid-west, but yesterday was really positive. It is very important that we remember all the people who lost their lives prematurely while in University Hospital Limerick, UHL. I am conscious that this week is the third anniversary of Aoife Johnston’s death. I want to acknowledge those who lost their lives.
I thank the Minister for putting her shoulder to the wheel and taking on what is the most important challenge for those of us in the mid-west. When we last spoke in the House on 27 November, we discussed the HIQA report and acknowledged that it laid bare for all to see that the problems that have been accumulating in accident and emergency care in the mid-west are caused by a chronic shortage of acute inpatient beds in UHL. The Minister may not be aware that this put to bed an ongoing local debate about the root causes of the problems we were experiencing with the emergency department. It was important that the report highlighted that inpatient acute bed care is what we require.
While I welcome the Minister’s other commitment yesterday to provide additional beds in Nenagh, Ennis and St. John’s hospitals, I want to flag that those are not actually acute inpatient beds.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17