The Taoiseach said today during Leaders’ Questions that hospital emergency departments were "not as safe as they should have been" last week.
Enda Kenny has promised that the government is doing its best to deal with the crisis, which has dominated the Dáil's first day back after Christmas.
“The accident and emergency departments were not as safe as they ought to be with the numbers that were in the units and, as a consequence, in the corridors,” Mr Kenny said.
Opposition parties focused on the overcrowding crisis during the first Leaders’ Questions following the Christmas break.
Fiann Fáil leader Micheal Martin told the Taoiseach that he “neglected it as a priority in government” and that this neglect was the cause of last week’s record numbers awaiting beds. In response, Mr Kenny told Mr Martin he had been Minister for Health and made promises to solve the overcrowding crisis.
Earlier today Minister for Health Leo Varadkar similarly highlighted that the overcrowding crisis had been a problem while Martin was Minister for Health 15 years ago.
Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams gave the Taoiseach a letter from HIQA, which says the crisis could have been eased if its recommendations had been followed earlier.
The Taoiseach says he will look into those claims.
The Health Minister said today he will focus relentlessly on seven problem hospitals where emergency department overcrowding persists.
Mr Varadkar met with the Emergency Department Taskforce this afternoon to discuss the ongoing problems.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) says 359 patients are waiting on trolleys and wards today.
Some 200 nurses and healthcare workers demonstrated outside the Dail this lunchtime, in protest over the crisis.
Minister Varadkar says the numbers waiting are lower than seven years ago, but the problem persists.
“I’ve looked at the figures this morning and if you compare like with like and if you compare this time of year with previous years, the numbers of patients on trolleys at this time of year is at a seven year low,” he said.
“Overcrowding on trolleys is a chronic problem that goes back 15 years so what this taskforce is really about is getting on top of that problem once and for all,” he added.
Over 200 nurses demonstrated outside the Dáil earlier today, protesting at overcrowding in hospitals.
The demonstration is in advance of work to rule action by nurses in hospitals around the country over the coming weeks.
Nurses in seven hospitals have voted for industrial action in the coming weeks to protest against overcrowding in emergency departments.
The Head of the INMO, Liam Doran, says the solution to the problem is clear – a recruitment drive to compensate for the lack of hiring in the past five years.
“The biggest stumbling block we have now is staffing because we’ve turned off the supply for the last five years, now we have to turn it on but our young professionals have gone to the UK and elsewhere so the biggest challenge is a recruitment drive to open those beds safely and provide dignity to patients,” Mr Doran said.
Minister Leo Varadkar says it's not that simple and a solution of more resources cannot solve the problems.
If more beds and more staff was the solution this ... would have been solved 15 years ago when it emerged as a real problem for the first time when Micheal Martin was Minister for Health,” Mr Varadkar said.
