Hospital Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny

I thank the Deputy for raising this really important topic. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister.
The Government acknowledges many patients are waiting too long for care, but we are committed to improving access to hospital care and reducing waiting times for patients, including through the multi-annual action plan approach. Building on the progress made to date, we will continue to focus on reducing waiting times for scheduled care in our hospitals through a range of measures, including service reforms and innovation, as well as targeted increases in capacity. The Government is also committed to increasing elective care capacity across Ireland to ensure high-quality and timely scheduled care is available to all.
In order to meet medium-term demand, we are delivering the first phase of increased elective capacity through a national network of surgical hubs. The two surgical hubs at Tallaght and Mount Carmel in south Dublin are already open and are having a real impact on day case waiting lists. There are due to be five more surgical hubs opened in 2026 at Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and in north Dublin. Hubs at Sligo and Letterkenny will then follow, with design for both now under way. In the longer term, and to meet the needs of our growing and ageing population - the Deputy is right to note it is ageing - we are also delivering a national network of elective treatment centres in Cork, Dublin and Galway. These new facilities will make a real difference to those who are waiting for access to elective treatments while also freeing up capacity in other hospitals to deal with more complex and emergency cases. Patients in the midlands will have access to these elective treatment centres on an equal basis to everyone else in the country, that is, based on clinical need. This will help to reduce waiting times for elective procedures and ultimately lead to a more efficient and responsive system for everyone.
Long waiting times are not unique to the hospital system, however. To address the long waiting times for primary care therapy services, the Department of Health is currently engaging with the HSE on a focused approach to these waiting lists. Under this programme of work, in September last year the Minister asked the HSE to put measures in place to address the long waiting lists for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. This is expected to remove over 60,000 people from these three waiting lists throughout the country. In addition, to ensure the necessary resources are available to maintain waiting lists below that target, the HSE is prioritising recruitment of permanent staff to primary care therapy services, with approval of an additional 200 whole-time equivalents in the national service plan for 2026. It is therefore about recruitment too, which the Deputy spoke about, through the different areas.
An additional 12 posts have been allocated to the midlands integrated healthcare area, including posts to address vacancies in occupational therapy and physiotherapy for children’s services in Offaly and Laois. I am also very pleased to advise that additional primary care infrastructure is in development in County Offaly following on from the opening of primary care centres in Tullamore and Banagher in recent years. Birr primary care centre is due to open in the first half of this year. It will include an extensive GP practice and allow the HSE to consolidate its primary care and mental health services under one roof, and this will be of real benefit to the people in the area. The Edenderry primary care centre is in the early planning stage and a planning application was submitted for this development to Offaly County Council this month. All of these measures are showing significant investment in the area and will have a very positive impact on the people of the midlands.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27