TROLLEY CRISIS – Reopen the Accident and Emergency departments at Nenagh General Hospital and Ennis General Hospital, reopen Our Lady’s Hospital Cashel and lift the moratorium on both staffing and home help hours.
From 2002 on, successive Governments have espoused and implemented the downgrading of hospitals and the transfer of acute hospital services to so-called centres of excellence. We all know that that policy has created chaos. It was wrong then and it is wrong now, and it should never have happened.
We in South Tipperary were lucky, that people power, that 15,000 people on the streets stopped the transfer of our services to other areas, but other areas were not as lucky. It is now time to recognise that failure of policy and reverse that policy failure.
The trolley figures are a clear example of the chaos. Those figures, and we are talking about human beings on trolleys in accident and emergency departments, on corridors and in wards are a clear example of the chaos, are a clear example of the failure and a clear example of the indignity suffered by thousands upon thousands of patients over the past ten years. The figures for October, 11,452, are absolutely outrageous. The figures are climbing year on year, and of course we haven’t really entered Winter at all yet.
One of the areas which has suffered the brunt of the policy that I am speaking is the mid-west, including Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary, which is part of my constituency. There are knock-on effects at South Tipperary General Hospital in addition. University Hospital Limerick and South Tipperary General Hospital consistently among the highest trolley figures in the country. Today’s trolley figures are absolutely obscene. Patients are suffering and patients are dying on trolleys in our emergency departments, something the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine has warned us about for the past number of years. Today’s figures are the second highest ever recorded.
Mary Harney, the former Minister for Health, declared an emergency when there were 602 patients on trolleys. Today there are 679 patients on trolleys. The particular problems at University Hospital Limerick and in Clare and north Tipperary started with the closure of the accident and emergency departments at Nenagh General Hospital and at Ennis General Hospital. There is now a campaign locally and there have been a number of very successful meetings to demand the reopening of the Accident and Emergency departments both at Nenagh General Hospital and at Ennis General Hospital
The chaos resulting from the policy I have described has been compounded by two moratoriums. Everybody in this Chamber, including the Taoiseach, knows they are real.
We have a moratorium on the recruitment of staff. There are currently 432 vacant posts for staff nurses, public health nurses and staff midwives. There are more than 500 nurse vacancies in mental health services. I know three nursing posts have been vacant for the past six months in South Tipperary mental health services, in the child and adolescent mental health services and a Clinical Nurse Specialist for mental health services in the accident and emergency department in Clonmel.
Is it now time to accept that the policy of downgrading hospitals has failed and that the policy should be reversed? Isn’t it now time to agree to the reopening of the accident and emergency department in Ennis and Nenagh? And isn’t it now time finally to recognise what we all know that there is a moratorium on both staffing and home help hours and that that moratorium should be lifted immediately.
I have to say that I am shocked at the lack of urgency that the Taoiseach displays, almost indifference, almost as if this situation is normal. The trolley figures are absolutely obscene. We have people suffering on trolleys in our hospitals and people are dying on trolleys in our hospitals. The Taoiseach is the leader of this country and I have to say that he has a responsibility for this obscenity, he has a responsibility for the suffering and a responsibly for the deaths of these people on trolleys in our hospitals over recent years, a position that continues to this day. The Taoiseach can solve this problem.
He absolutely can solve this problem. I ask him to introduce immediately a supplementary budget to tax the 1%, the very wealthy people, the billionaires who own 27.3% of all the wealth in this country. They are not paying their fair share now, nor have they ever done so. I want the Taoiseach to reopen the accident and emergency departments at Nenagh General Hospital and Ennis General Hospital and to reopen Our Lady’s Hospital Cashel, a state-of-the-art hospital which has been vacant for the past ten years. The Taoiseach has the responsibility to solve this problem. He can do it. The question is whether he has the political will to do it.
Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) Since Operation Pontus in the Mediterranean became Operation Sophia, the number of refugees landing in Italy has more than halved. For a considerable time, there has been serious concern that the price that the EU and Ireland are prepared to pay for stemming migration is the gross abuse of the human rights of migrants. The Irish office of Amnesty International has stated, “The Libyan coastguard is intercepting people in distress at sea and transferring them to Libya, where they are being held in detention centres and exposed to systematic and widespread human rights violations such as arbitrary detention, torture, rape and exploitation.” The statement goes on to indicate that while Ireland is not directly sending people back to Libya, it shares responsibility due to Europe’s joint actions to strengthen the capacity of the Libyan coastguard to intercept people and return them to Libya. Amnesty International has said that EU member states, including Ireland, cannot plausibly claim to be unaware of the grave violations being committed by some of the detention centre officials and coastguard agents with whom they co-operate. It has also argued that European Governments, including Ireland, stand accused of being knowingly complicit in the torture and exploitation of thousands of migrants and refugees by the EU-financed Libyan coastguard and officials running the country’s detention camps. The UN human rights chief, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has also described the suffering of migrants in these camps as “an outrage to the conscience of humanity”. Médecins sans Frontières has also supported, in various reports, the views of those other organisations.
In view of the human rights abuses in Libya I have outlined, will the Taoiseach order Irish vessels to cease all co-operation with the Libyan coastguard? Will his Government cease participation in the training and funding of the Libyan coastguard through Operation Sophia? In a reply to a recent parliamentary question, I was told that, on its tour of duty, the LÉ Niamhrescued more than 600 migrants, 294 of whom were put ashore in Italy. Will the Taoiseach tell the Dáil to what non-Irish vessels were the remaining more than 300 migrants transferred? Where were those transferred migrants put ashore in each case? Will the Taoiseach give an assurance that none of these migrants was transferred to the Libyan coastguard by the LÉ Niamhor to any other vessel to which they had already been transferred?
Leo Varadkar (Taoiseach, Department of An Taoiseach; Dublin West, Fine Gael) The Deputy asked if we will withdraw from our mission in the Mediterranean in Operation Sophia. We will not do so. I am very proud of the work that our Naval Service and Defence Forces are doing in the Mediterranean, rescuing migrants from the sea and training the Libyan coastguard to do what a coastguard should be able to do, namely, secure its seas and do its work, at least in its own territorial waters. It is an operation of which we are part. We are very proud of our Naval Service for being part of it. That will continue. The Deputy asked if people were transferred to the Libyan coastguard. I am advised by the Minister of State with responsibility for defence that this was not the case and people transferred to other boats were brought to Italy. I will seek confirmation of that to ensure I am correct in that regard.
It is evident to everyone in Europe that we face a large amount of migration from the Middle East and Africa. The numbers have decreased very considerably in the past couple of years.
Anyway, it has had a huge effect. It has had a big effect on the politics of Europe. We see that from the elections in Italy, where a populist anti-immigrant government has been elected and in the countries of central and eastern Europe, where anti-migration governments have been elected. We cannot be in denial about the fact that this has changed politics. Public opinion in Europe is changing too. We see it evident in Germany, which was initially welcoming to millions of migrants. Now, public opinion is in a very different place in Germany and we cannot be blind to the realities of that.
John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) It is happening in Austria as well.
When it comes to co-operation with source countries and transit countries, we have to bear in mind why people risk their lives to travel to Europe and to cross the seas in the way they do. It is because they come from countries that are badly governed or unsafe or where there is no economic opportunity. That is why it must be part of the core mission of Europe, when it comes to the Middle East and Africa, to try to build peace and security and bring about economic opportunities in the Middle East and Africa. We have seen how the power of the free market in Asia has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty in 20 years. We need to see that kind of power happen in Africa as well so that people are not forced to travel.
We need to step up border security as well because what is happening is terrible. People are travelling huge distances. Traffickers put them in dinghies and boats that are not seaworthy knowing full well that European navies and others will come to the rescue and bring them the rest of the journey. That is something that cannot be encouraged. None of us should in any way encourage human trafficking of that nature. The Libyan coastguard has a big job to do to deal with that.
I note he failed to give an assurance that Ireland will stop training and funding the Libyan coastguard and, through the coastguard, the Libyan Government, which is torturing migrants in these camps.
The Taoiseach is Minister for Defence and, as such, he is responsible for this area of operations. In a parliamentary reply recently I was told that 139 suspected people smugglers or traffickers had been apprehended under Operation Sophia and that 545 boats were taken from criminal organisations. Were any of these boats or smugglers handed back to the Libyan coastguard? More important, were any of the refugees or migrants on these boats handed over to the Libyan coastguard or any other Libyan ships to be sent back to detention centres in Libya?
I will double check so that I am sure, but I am informed that none of them was handed over to the Libyan coastguard and that they were taken to European countries.
The Deputy ascribed comments to those various organisations. I am not sure that they said that about the Government. One or two might have but they certainly did not all say that. It is very much our position as a government that the camps or detention centres should be run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, or the International Organization for Migration, IOM.
The UNHCR said it.
That is very much the point I will make at the summit of European prime ministers later this week. Reception centres, where they exist, should be run by the UNHCR or the IOM so that we can be assured human rights are upheld and standards are protected. At the same time, we need to ensure we never equivocate on human trafficking. No one should do anything to facilitate these people smugglers and human traffickers.
I am afraid that some actors in this area are doing that. It might not be their intention but they are doing it.
Speaking at Leaders Questions in the Dáil on 21st Feb Deputy Healy said
“All citizens have a right to a satisfactory and good-quality public transport service. It is the duty of the State to ensure that such a service is provided. It cannot and must not be left to market forces.
Members of the public in my Tipperary constituency and in rural areas generally are entitled to the same standard of public transport as the constituents of the Minister, Deputy Ross, here in Dublin.
Yesterday, Bus Éireann proposed the closure of the Clonmel to Dublin bus service among others. This is absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Of course, it comes on the back of the closure of the Carrick-on-Suir to Dublin bus service in 2015. It comes on the back of the proposed closure of the Limerick to Waterford rail service and the Limerick to Ballybrophy rail service. The Limerick to Waterford rail line servicing Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Cahir and Tipperary town is being undermined on a daily basis by management regularly and frequently cancelling trains on that line. In addition, the main social and economic corridor across the south of the county, the N24, has been left out of the road capital programme, which is particularly damaging to the Tipperary town and Carrick-on-Suir. Of course, the failure to build the Thurles bypass, which has been overlooked for years, resulting in chaos in the square, turning it into a car park.
County Tipperary is not getting a fair crack of the whip.
A Fine Gael led Government already abolished Clonmel Borough Council and the town councils in Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Tipperary town, Thurles, Templemore and Nenagh. A Fine Gael led Government with the help of the Labour Party also closed the St. Michael’s 50 bed psychiatric unit at South Tipperary General Hospital. Now north Tipperary patients must travel to Ennis and south Tipperary patients must travel to Kilkenny to avail of a service that is inadequate and substandard.
The abandonment of County Tipperary must stop.
I am asking the Taoiseach if he will give an assurance to stop any threat to the Clonmel to Dublin bus service. Will he give an assurance to re-establish the Carrick-on-Suir to Dublin bus service? After 20 years of waiting, will the Taoiseach give the go-ahead for the N24 upgrading, including the bypass of Tipperary town, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir? Also after 20 years, will the Taoiseach give the go-ahead for the bypass of Thurles this afternoon?
We have been waiting for 20 years for both the N24 upgrade and the Thurles bypass. The Taoiseach’s Government and the previous Government starved public transport and road budgets. The road budgets fell between 2007 and 2015 by €1.722 billion. The State subvention to CIE was slashed by €132 million, from €321 million in 2008 to €189 million in 2015. The State subvention to Bus Éireann is down €16.3 million from €49.4 million to €33.1 million. The free travel contribution from the Department of Social Protection is completely inadequate. It has been capped for years despite increased numbers and the fact that 30% of Bus Éireann’s passengers are availing of free travel.
In June 2016, the Taoiseach wrote to the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, seeking permission to borrow money for infrastructural works. He said at the time that investment in infrastructure in Ireland was “at its lowest level for many years, and also represents the lowest level of any member state at present”. He got no reply, or none that we heard of.
Italy recently told President Juncker it will borrow money with or without his permission.
I ask the Taoiseach to do likewise. Will he reassert Irish sovereignty and put the right of the Irish people to proper transport infrastructure, and other capital investment such as housing, before the EU and EU diktats.”
Seamus Healy T.D. 22/2/2017
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