Health Services Staff
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-29
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Michael Murphy (FG), Tipperary South

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. It is very unfortunate. What I find most frustrating is that Dr. Hillery's retirement was a planned retirement. The recruitment processes that we have been going through for the past 15 months should have commenced before Dr. Hillery's planned retirement.
I am a small bit alarmed about what was not mentioned in the reply, namely, the HSE's engagement with the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin. What was the outcome of that engagement? There was also no reference to engaging with the private agency, as was suggested in the reply to me on 18 February. There is no detail on the scoping exercise or, indeed, any plan to avail of capacity within the private sector.
I welcome that a multidisciplinary working group has been established involving consultants from University Hospital Waterford and the national clinical lead for ophthalmology. This is a matter of concern for all the elected representatives in south Tipperary. Perhaps a meeting could be set up with Deputies Healy and McGrath and myself. It is important that we be kept updated.
What are the contingency measures in the meantime? My understanding is that there is no additional capacity. Everybody is working hard down in University Hospital Waterford. I do not like to put on the record of this Chamber that parents are telling me that the phone is going unanswered, but parents are unfortunately being forced into accessing private ophthalmology. It is a crisis. I would like to organise a meeting with the Minister.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-29