was given to the HSE before Christmas<\/a> and specialist cleaning is ongoing. IT teams will begin work this month, with the first batch of equipment delivered yesterday.<\/p>\n Ms Carroll MacNeill said the main contractor BAM has “certainly improved engagement” after years of delays and cost overruns that saw the builders at loggerheads with the project overlords, the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board.<\/p>\n
Full commissioning of the National Children’s Hospital, after handover, is now seven to eight months away, Ms Carroll MacNeill said.<\/p>\n
Pressed on an exact date, the minister said: \u201cI wish BAM would just give me the hospital.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for BAM said it is “working closely with all stakeholders to actively manage the challenges involved and to secure the earliest possible opening date for the children of Ireland”.<\/p>\n
An inquiry into spinal care was promised in the aftermath of the death of Harvey Morrison Sherratt, aged 9, last July. Ms Carroll MacNeill said the tragedies that have sparked the inquiries are often difficult to process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some quiet, very difficult days, when you get patient notifications about things that have happened around the country and you can get those at any time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Many of those are just natural things but they are always very sad. That\u2019s not something you anticipate before becoming minister for health.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI appreciate there has been significant difficulties in spinal care for some time, but I do see improvements.”<\/p>\n
Many hospitals have faced unprecedented patient numbers in recent days, due to freezing conditions and the high number of flu cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some 75 people were on trolleys for longer than 24 hours, including 14 people aged over 75, on Thursday. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation counted 708 people unable to get a bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tackling overcrowding is Ms Carroll MacNeill’s “no 1 priority” and she was especially critical of health chiefs in Cork and Galway for not doing more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if I was living in Cork I would reasonably ask why can’t I have the predictability or the relative predictability that we achieve in the Mater or Beaumont or St James,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n I just think the people in Cork and Galway deserve the same experience and we have to interrogate that as much as possible to make sure we achieve it. And I do believe we will achieve it.\n <\/p>\n
Over the last year, all hospitals moved to a seven-day week roster, among other reforms, in a bid to ease overcrowding.<\/p>\n
Ms Carroll MacNeill said: \u201cCork and Galway are further behind on this journey of process change, but to be very fair they have certainly come a distance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She highlighted improvements elsewhere, saying: \u201cLimerick is performing really well, they\u2019re discharging around 100 people per day despite very increased attendances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response, HSE South West said CUH and other hospitals locally are challenged because of \u201cincreased demand and capacity constraints\u201d.<\/p>\n
It said it is \u201cdetermined to ensure that CUH and all sites progress to meeting national targets, including those relating to emergency department wait times on a consistent basis\u201d. The CUH emergency department sees 14% more patients now than in 2023, but the number of patients on trolleys has dropped in a 17% year-on-year improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAverage adult discharges increased by 7% in 2025, with CUH regularly achieving the highest discharge volumes nationally,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
It had 585 beds by April, up from 493 in 2020 and 30 critical care beds, up from 18. More acute beds are planned this year.<\/p>\n
Recruitment has continued with the workforce now at 4,840, including additional nurses and midwives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The HSE expects recent investments, including in Mallow and Blarney, as well as building a new surgical hub \u201cwill help to alleviate the pressures on acute settings such as CUH”, it said.<\/p>\n
It said \u201cgreater integration of health and social care services\u201c this year will also help.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for HSE West and Northwest said Galway hospital is \u201cchallenged with bed capacity, delayed discharges and high numbers of patients being treated for flu and RSV, however, we are doing everything we can.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The statement added: \u201cThis is not the standard of care that we want for patients of our services and we regret that any patient would have to wait for a hospital bed in this way. This is a patient safety issue.<\/p>\n
“Existing facilities are outdated and lack the space and design needed to support modern, state-of-the-art healthcare delivery. A new emergency department and 300 new inpatient beds are key elements of the long-term development plans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
One broader area where reforms seem to be having little impact is slashing the ballooning bills for agency workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe clearly have an imperative to reduce the spend which is close to \u20ac1bn a year on agency,\u201d Ms Carroll MacNeill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd while I think there is always a measure of some appropriate agency work, we have become too used to it. It has become too expensive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She cautioned: \u201cIt\u2019s too much a normalised part of the system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Solutions include plans to revamp hiring processes in hospitals, community and therapy roles.<\/p>\n
Ms Carroll MacNeill also touched on wider plans to help people avoid vaping by making it easier to clamp down on new products.<\/p>\n
\u201cVaping is far too available,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do this future-proofing in the legislation which will give me or my successor the opportunity to catch different products more quickly than would have been the case by having to do primary legislation all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tobacco companies try to make vapes \u201cmore and more attractive\u201d, she said, while also developing new products like nicotine pouches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just different ways of manipulating children and getting them addicted to nicotine,\u201d she warned.<\/p>\n
It is too early to say how many of her plans will have come to fruition by December especially for construction but patients and healthcare workers will surely hope for as many as possible to land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If 2026 delivers a new elective hospital for Limerick and the handover of the National Children\u2019s Hospital to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[120970,21911,103,397,396,2120,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-238488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-childrens-hospital","9":"tag-hospital-overcrowding","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-hse","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4925807_22_articleinlinemobile_Jwennifer.jpg\" "\\"A")
A framed newspaper page from 1985 hanging on her office wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n