Hospital Facilities
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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John Paul O'Shea (FG), Cork North-West

I fully concur with the Minister that we do not see the full utilisation of Mallow General Hospital. I am glad she brought those figures to the House this morning, so we can discuss them in a public forum. I have been advocating for the further and better use of Mallow General Hospital for many years, in my roles as a councillor and, for the past 12 months, as a TD. I concur with the Minister. There is a lot of work to be done on utilising Mallow General Hospital beds and we need to work together to make sure they are used. We cannot have a system where we have overcrowding, people waiting for inpatient beds in CUH and Mercy University Hospital, while there are vacant beds in Mallow. Mallow General Hospital serves a huge area covering the border of Limerick, Kerry and Waterford and the metropolitan area of Cork city. Every patient I talk to who is waiting for a bed would go to Mallow for the care. We, therefore, need to work together to make sure it is utilised in the best way possible going forward.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-22