I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. We can never speak enough about care work and carers in this country. We can all agree that, in a very crude form, carers save the State hundreds of millions of euro per year. We cannot put a price on the care work they do for loved ones and friends. The discrepancies in care pointed out by Family Carers Ireland are quite shocking. The report is called the State of Caring, but the state of caring is arbitrary and can be very hit-and-miss in terms of respite care, which I wi…

There has been a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the future of Lucan Lodge Nursing Home in the past couple of months. Hopefully, the Minister of State can shine a light on the future of the nursing home because the relatives, the staff and everybody involved want to know what is its future going forward.

I thank the Minister of State. Those who work in the home and the residents and their relatives are very concerned about its future. There has been ongoing awareness and protests with a view to keeping the facility open. I have a number of questions. Will the HSE consider taking over the facility on a full-time basis? If not, would other providers be interested in taking it over? The fact the previous provider has gone into liquidation raises all sorts of difficulties with regard to the future of the facility. I th…

That is relatively good news. If there is a scenario where none of the care providers is in a position to take over, it would be a disaster if facility had to close because it would mean the 50 residents would have to seek other accommodation. There is also the situation of the staff. People are very happy there but they are very worried about the long-term future of the nursing home. It is extremely important that, in the first instance, the HSE take over the facility. As the Minister of State suggested at the hea…

I have mixed up my notes. Does Deputy Smith want to go ahead?

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. My question relates to the Irish national ICU audit. There was a recent audit on intensive care beds in the State. It pointed out a number of an anomalies and, obviously, deficiencies. There were also positive things in that report on our healthcare system. I wish to hear the Minister’s views on the report.

I acknowledge there has been significant progress in intensive care beds since Covid-19, which exposed crack lines in medical need. Obviously, there is more demand in our public healthcare system because of population growth and so forth. Obviously, not having ICU beds creates a knock-on effect and a trickle-down effect. If there is full capacity at ICU level, that will have a knock-on effect in terms of bringing people out from the ICU into hospital wards. Another issue to which the audit referred was the staffing…

I accept that. I said from the outset that there has been progress in respect of ICU beds. The report referred to the issue across our health system in retaining staff who are trained here and who may emigrate and so forth. There are mitigating circumstances in this regard such as the work-life balance and staff getting accommodation in built-up areas like Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway where many of these beds are located. That is having a knock-on effect. Other countries have incentivised staff, whether that i…

Yes.

This is the Gino Kenny show at this stage. My next question is about the statement by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation last week on bed capacity. More than 604 patients were being treated without a bed in Irish hospitals last week. That is completely unacceptable and is a continuous thing. We cannot have people without proper provision in our hospitals because that will have a detrimental effect on their well-being.

I accept that there has been progress in this regard. However, especially at bank holiday weekends, there seems to be a spike in the number of people who cannot get a hospital bed. The figure of 404 or whatever the actual figure is, is too many. We have the situation of hospital beds in the Irish public health system, which is a legacy issue. We all agree there needs to be more bed capacity in Irish hospitals. Since the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a serious reduction in the number of hospital beds per head of p…

The INMO appeared before the health committee two weeks ago and painted a very stark picture regarding capacity. The organisation is calling for thousands of extra beds in the public health system. It laid out where the deficiencies exist in the health system. INMO members are the people on the front line. The representatives focused on the lack of beds in the Irish health system where there has been a reduction in the past three or four decades, and it can be seen that Ireland is playing catch-up all the time. I k…

I will be happy to get the Minister's answer on this question, so I will skip my 30-second introduction.

I am taking his question as well, just to make things more complicated.

I thank the Minister. In certain areas, there are pressures on staff. Probably one good example is public health nurses in CHO 7. In CHO 7 in Clondalkin and Lucan, there are no public health nurses whatsoever. This is very worrying. I got a response to a parliamentary question on why public health nurses could not be recruited and the reason was that new public health nurses just could not be recruited into that area. That is extremely worrying. If you do not have public health nurses looking after young children o…

My question is about the ongoing review of the medical cannabis access programme. As the Minister knows, the Health Research Board, HRB, did a very extensive review which was published in January. It recommended a number of progressive changes to the medical cannabis access programme, which at the moment is stagnant in terms of patients who can access medical cannabis treatment. I would like to hear the Minister's views of the review by the Department of Health.

I had my head in my hands there because the level of despair about the lack of progress on this issue is palpable. Those who have been campaigning on this issue have been frustrated, to say the least. Since the legislation was introduced in 2019 and the MCAP was set up, only 50 people have received access to the programme. It is too restrictive. The HRB stipulated that it should expand to other conditions, particularly neurodegenerative conditions. The Danish medical cannabis access programme is much more extensive…

-----and some people have to go to the black market, which is bizarre. Some people have to do without. That is just not acceptable when we have a programme that is up and running, but is largely stagnant in getting people access to these particular products.

I think the Minister, personally, is a good supporter of this issue and that he wants to see progress. Who will be on that working group? Is there a timeline for when it will finish its work? In the past, we have seen groups being set up, and it takes forever for them to come back with recommendations. The HRB report does recommend that the programme needs to expand. If it does not, I do not think the programme will last. I do not think it will go anywhere-----