The Government remains committed to investing in and developing the National Ambulance Service, NAS, including in the south east. The allocation in 2025 includes an additional €28 million of new service development funding for up to 180 additional posts. Those posts will focus on strengthening front-line emergency services, expanding alternative care pathways and developing specialist services, including critical care retrieval. Government investment in NAS has increased by 64% since 2020. The HSE Dublin and South …

We continue to invest at pace. There are an additional 500 NAS staff since 2020, with the total going from approximately 2,000 to 2,500, which is a very considerable increase of 26%. That increase is needed to ensure the distribution of staff and the different ways in which they can try to keep people close to home, particularly older people whom we do not want having to present at acute hospitals. The south-east region currently has 14 ambulance bases, with 277 whole-time equivalent staff, including paramedics, ad…

I recognise the work done by volunteer groups like Arklow Cancer Support and the support they give to cancer patients travelling for blood tests, infusion services and so on. The HSE is not a land development or transport company. I recognise there are many different groups providing an enormous service to cancer patients, some with some measure of State support and others not. While the HSE will never be a transport company, I have met Volunteer Ireland to ask it to compile a list of all the different volunteer gr…

I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter again. It is fantastic to see the amplification and awareness of endometriosis in Ireland. That is part of what the framework is trying to do. We launched the framework on 18 October. I will set out the timeline again. This was in gestation for some period but it was becoming very clear that we were not meeting the needs or responding or perhaps hearing the acuity of what women were describing in terms of their pain, suffering and the impact on t…

I did not know that. I am sorry I did not. I am so glad the Deputy and I have the opportunity to describe the pain women face every day. As she said, it is like a knife fight inside you and yet she comes to the Dáil, working an extraordinarily demanding job, as everybody here knows. It is exceptionally physically and emotionally difficult and that is just the job. That is on top of all the things we bring to work with us. It has not been understood. The Deputy knows that better than me. She does not need me to expl…

I will do everything I can do try to drive clinical trials and research. I am launching the clinical trials oversight group this evening. This is an obvious space. It is under-researched more broadly though there is an opportunity for us in France that I might to talk to the Deputy about separately. It is really important that she mentioned fertility. Fertility is inextricably linked to the experience of endometriosis. Many women have not been able to have children, have had to postpone fertility to try to receive …

-----or women for whom it has come as a consequence of pregnancy. Can we just put a line under that now that it never happens ever again in an Irish medical facility that a teenage girl is told to go and have a baby and that will sort her endometriosis?

Cavan and Monaghan operate as a single entity with integrated managerial and clinical governance systems, care pathways and support functions. They are 46 km apart from each other. Cavan and Monaghan hospitals currently have two CT scanners and one MRI scanner. Two CT scanners is one more than is available to the people in Mayo, where there is only one CT scanner in Mayo University Hospital. There is no business case submitted by Cavan and Monaghan hospital for a CT scanner. The hospital does not have plans to seek…

There is nothing the Deputy likes better than a good campaign and nothing he likes less than a few facts. Staffing has increased by 70%. I am so glad to hear him acknowledge it today because there are so many times when I do not hear that about Monaghan.

That may be the Deputy's perception of all things but if he had been here he would have heard the dialogue around diagnostics, including from his party spokesperson, and the utilisation of them - he is sitting beside Deputy Conway-Walsh, whose county actually does need a second CT scanner in Mayo University Hospital and the local injury unit. I was there this week.

The Deputy does not like answers that do not operate as convenient for him. He is the only Deputy this morning who talked across me as I was trying to give him an answer. He does not like facts.

The Deputy does not like an answer. I am entitled to give him an answer to his question. He asked me about Monaghan hospital. Here is his answer. Cavan and Monaghan have two CT scanners and an MRI scanner. They are the same unit. Staffing has increased by 70%. The budget has increased by 54% for Monaghan alone. What the Deputy does not like is how my colleague, Deputy Maxwell, reminds him of the number of hospitals and services removed in the adjoining area in the North of Ireland that have been closed under Sinn F…

And health.

Hear, hear.

I thank the House for the opportunity to discuss what is a most important issue to all of us. At the outset, it is important that I clarify a technical piece in relation to protected disclosures and how they work. I am conscious that it was the subject of debate among the leaders last week, which I totally understand, but it is important that the House has clarity on it. The Protected Disclosures Act was agreed by this House without a vote. Everybody supports the idea of it and the purpose of it is to protect whist…

I want to try to address all the points, but there is a time limit. Let me try to address a couple of things quickly, and then some of the more detailed issues. In relation to the 2024 annual report for CHI, the annual financial statements are with the Comptroller and Auditor General. The intention is for it to be published by the end of the year. Forgive me, but I cannot recall who mentioned infection rates. It is important to acknowledge that there has been significant difficulty in the past but that is reducing.…

I move: That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Health Information Bill 2024 that, pursuant to Standing Order 194(2), the Committee has power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the scope of the existing provisions of the Bill in order to introduce a technical amendment to the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023, in order to bring public nursing homes within the remit of section 68 of that Act and to make other consequential amendments required to take account o…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, line 31, after “Act;” to insert “to amend the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023;”. I am pleased to bring forward the Health Information Bill for consideration on Report Stage. Its purpose is to bring forward a number of statutory measures around the consistent sharing and use of health information while ensuring it best serves the individual patient, healthcare practitioners and society as a whole. However, amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 6, which I under…

This whole Bill has to go to the Seanad yet and, once that is done and this Bill is enacted, then that other provision can essentially be commenced.

January.