Hospital Staff Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-24 ============================================================ Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny I thank the Senator for raising this important question. The Senator and the Acting Chairperson, Senator Noonan, have constantly be raising these issues, and rightly so. I thank the Senator for this opportunity to address the House on this matter. I am taking this Commencement matter, as the Senator will be aware, on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. The Government is committed to the development of services in St. Luke's General Hospital. As the Senator will be aware, we visited there recently - it is a few months ago the way the months are flying - with the Minister. St. Luke's General Hospital provides a range of important services to the people of Carlow-Kilkenny as well as counties Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford, Kildare and Laois. To meet the increase in demand for services, considerable additional resources have been provided in St. Luke's. Staffing at the hospital grew from 1,185 to 1,505 between the end of December 2020 to July 2026. It has grown quite considerably. This represents a significant increase of 27%. The HSE has advised it continues to actively progress and approve vacancies and implement workforce planning measures to support service delivery - they are constantly onto that - while staffing levels, patient activity and service requirements are also monitored on an ongoing basis. The budget for St. Luke's hospital increased by 62% between 2020 and 2026 and important capital projects are being progressed. These projects include the refurbishment of existing wards to accommodate acute beds, including space for a paediatric day unit which was completed this year. I would also like to respond to the Senator's question on the update of the staffing of the new Carlow injury unit, which is important for us all. Enabling works have started on this unit. The work has commenced. While the work is progressing well and we hope to have it open as soon as possible, all efforts are being made to operationalise the injury unit prior to the planned opening in 2027. To put it simply, the contractors are in, it is being worked on, but my priority, like that of the Senators, is to have it up and running as soon as possible. This represents a key step forward in delivering this important service for the people of Carlow and surrounding areas. Recruitment for the Carlow injury unit will follow the national model for injury units. It includes: advanced nursing practitioners, emergency medicine medical staff, radiography, administrative support, and operation and governance roles. The HSE will ensure that staffing is phased in line with the construction process, commissioning requirements and service readiness. Even though Kilkenny will lead this now and it will be working in conjunction with Kilkenny hospital, they will have their own separately. Their staff will be different while they all work together, to clarify that. I am also happy to inform that Senator the HSE has confirmed that the staffing, as I have said, in the injury unit will not impact the posts committed in St. Luke's hospital. The posts remain part of the hospital work plan and they are separate from the staffing model of the injury unit, because there were - the Senator is correct - huge concerns about that. Most of them are nearly hired now. Work has started. The main thing is we get it open as soon as possible. --- 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/2026-09-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-24