Hospital Waiting Lists
Dail Éireann — 2022-02-15
============================================================

Stephen Donnelly (FF), Wicklow

Phil Ní Sheaghdha and I spoke yesterday about many of these issues. I will visit Limerick on Thursday when I will go directly to the hospital and meet the hospital group. The Deputy is right in identifying the ongoing pressures there in spite of investment, increased resources and a new emergency department. The pressure is still not acceptable in Limerick or in Galway and other hospitals.
I agree with the Deputy's core point on waiting lists. I made similar contributions in this House from where the Deputy is sitting. Waiting lists have not been acceptable for too long. The question is what we are doing about it. I have allocated €350 million this year specifically for waiting lists. Obviously, it will take much more money to build the permanent capacity in the public system because we need a public health service that can deal with total demand for the country. We want a single-tier system. At the same time, we must get help for all of the men, women and children who are waiting. That is what the €350 million plan is for. I look forward to publishing it shortly and discussing it in detail with the Deputy and other Members.

---

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/dail/2022-02-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-02-15