I have met hundreds of parents of children with disabilities in recent months, primarily in the area of healthcare and accessing speech and language therapy support, occupational therapy, child psychology and physiotherapy - a whole range of supports that children with disabilities need and cannot get because we do not have adequate resourcing of children’s disability network teams. Part of that involves the lack of supports in schools. There is obviously a clear link between the assessments of need the HSE should …

I ask for an outline of the length of time people are waiting in emergency departments. Are the Government's targets for the maximum wait times being met? Yesterday I received a response to a parliamentary question which stated that the average time to admission for patients aged over 75 through emergency departments across the State was 13.75 hours. That is a long time. Unfortunately, the data across the board are not good.

In one of the hospitals the Minister will visit tomorrow, Cork University Hospital, the average wait time for over 75s in April was 28.8 hours which is staggering. These are people over the age of 75, who the Minister admits have comorbidity and other challenges. The average wait time in the Mercy Hospital was 26.8 hours and University Hospital Limerick was 22.2 hours. We have major problems in all our acute hospitals. The Minister is right in saying some hospitals are getting it right. I will get to the solutions …

We obviously need more inpatient beds in some hospitals, but it is not all about beds. In some hospitals which got additional beds in recent years, we are not seeing the improvements we need. Of course, we need more inpatient bed capacity because if we have more beds, we can admit patients more quickly. We also need a discharge plan for each patient as soon as they go into the hospital. That needs to be multidisciplinary with all staff working together as a team. They also need to know that step-down beds are avail…

The Minister will know that 1,500 children have experienced a major congenital malformation or some form of neurodevelopmental delay because of exposure to sodium valproate. He committed to an inquiry into this but that has not happened. I believe terms of reference have still not been agreed. Support packages were supposed to be put in place for victims and survivors but that has not happened. I want to get a sense of the status and how this can be advanced as quickly as possible.

People want to hear when the terms of reference will be complete and when the inquiry will be established. Does the Minister have any timeframe at all? That commitment was given a long time ago. There was also a commitment given in 2019, when the HSE recommended medical cards for all individuals who have FVS. That has not happened. I understand it was also recommended that community healthcare organisations, CHOs, submit business cases for additional supports to provide these services. According to a report in The …

I have met with the campaign group and many of the affected families. They are very sore about this. They said that nurses were sent to families to assess their support needs but no supports ever came. That is the problem. There has been a commitment to an inquiry which has still not been established. I heard the Minister say he wants to get it right. Those affected also want to get it right but they need some sort of timeframe for when it will happen. Solid commitments were given in respect of community care, as t…

Somebody is at fault and it is not the patients.

This question is about the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS. I am aware there have been talks between the Minister and the Irish Dental Association, IDA, over the last number of months and that some movement has been made. Unfortunately, from the association's perspective, it does not appear to be enough. I am seeking an update from the Minister on the current position. Does he believe we can attract more dentists into the DTSS given the impact it is having on medical card holders?

A sticking plaster solution is not going to work. I welcome the fact that funding has been increased. However, additional funding can be provided, and we have just discussed home care supports where the funding is available, but we cannot get the staff to provide the service. Telling people that the funding is there is no comfort to them when the service is not being provided. Obviously, we have to fix the scheme and get dentists back into it. There is a wider issue here as well, and it is happening across primary …

It is a sticking plaster solution if the money is not spent. That is the point. I welcome the fact that the Minister has committed the additional funding. He has gone some way to address some of the issues. I am not blaming all this on the HSE or on the Minister. I want all parties to come to the table to resolve this issue. The people I am focused on are the medical card holders who cannot get access to care. We can tell them we have provided more funding and there is a pot of money available, but if their dentist…

I raise with the Tánaiste the issue of cardiac services for the south east. As he will know, I have been campaigning with others in the Oireachtas on this issue for a long number of years. Members in the south east met with the Minister for Health a long number of months ago. At that meeting, we were promised that the national review into cardiac services was going to be published within days. That has not happened. We were also promised that by March, primary percutaneous coronary intervention emergency services w…

I commend People Before Profit on tabling this motion. I welcome the medical scientists who are in the Public Gallery. I too was on the picket line yesterday with my colleague Deputy O'Rourke at St. James's Hospital, and many of my colleagues have been on picket lines throughout the State over recent weeks. We know this is a very long-standing issue that needs to be resolved. I read the Minister's speech very carefully - we got a copy as he was making it - but it does not really tell us anything we do not know. He …

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: - in its report entitled "Report of the unannounced monitoring assessment at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin", the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) noted that "the infrastructure of the hospital, despite numerous and ongoing renovations and refurbishments, was not in line with recommended guidelines for maternity care facilities"; - in the report entitled "Overview report of HIQA's monitoring programme against the National Standards for Sa…

I will first outline what I want to see arising from this motion, which I understand will not be opposed by the Government. I will get to that in a few moments. I want to see a resourcing of the national maternity strategy. I want to see modern, fit-for-purpose maternity hospitals with modern, fit-for-purpose maternity suites for women right across this State. I want to see it for all women. I want to see investment in all of our maternity hospitals right across the State. The Minister will be aware that while I ac…

They said they do. They said the landowner, the landlord. The Minister can go back and check the record. I was in the room. The Minister was not. They said the landlord is St. Vincent's Healthcare Group.

When I asked them who owned the land, they said the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group.

They said there was a lease arrangement.

They did not say the State.

With respect, if it is not questions and answers and over and back, I would prefer if the Minister did not interrupt. I would give way to him if that was allowed. My point is that I had those discussions with them. I put very direct questions to them, and they were very clear that the landowners were St. Vincent's Healthcare Group and that there was a lease arrangement in place between the HSE and St. Vincent's Healthcare Group. I put it to them very directly. Who owns the freehold? They said St. Vincent's Healthca…