Hospital Staff
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19
============================================================

Manus Boyle (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I raise the issue of the slow reopening of beds in Killybegs Community Hospital. Since December only two beds have been reopened. At a time when we see our hospitals under such huge pressure, this is very worrying for families and patients in south-west Donegal.
I want to state clearly the staff in Killybegs Community Hospital are doing their very best. Nurses, healthcare assistants and all staff are working extra hours and going beyond the call of duty to keep the 22 beds currently open there running smoothly. They deserve great credit and support. However, staff can only do so much without proper resourcing and staffing levels. I am asking the Minister of State and the HSE to explain why more beds have not been reopened and what is being done to speed up the process. Some practical steps that could help include faster recruitment of nurses and healthcare assistants; offering flexibility of part-time hours to attract more staff; bringing back retired staff who may be willing to help; using temporary agency staff until permanent staff are hired; providing extra supports for rural hospitals like Killybegs Community Hospital and other community hospitals across the country; improving recruitment timelines; and filling posts more quickly.
Community hospitals are vital for older people and families. They want to be close to their loved ones at home. People in Killybegs, Kilcar, Carrick, Glencolumbkille, Ardara, Glenties and Dunkineely deserve a clear plan and timeline of the reopening of these beds as soon as possible. Every week I get phone calls to my office and myself from patients looking for beds in Killybegs Community Hospital. We have to travel a long distance to Letterkenny. It might be two hours of a round trip and it is the same to Sligo. These beds are in the hospital – all we need is the staff. Is there any chance we can get this up and going as soon as possible? The people of this area really rely on this hospital. We deserve the beds there. There is nothing worse than someone ringing you and you cannot get them into the community hospital in Killybegs. They might only need a bit of respite for a couple of weeks to give the people at home a bit of time to themselves. I appeal to the Minister of State to try to help me get these 13 beds up and going again.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19