Fianna Fáil Seanad leader Darragh O’Brien has sharply criticised the performance of Minister for Health Leo Varadkar.

Mr O’Brien said this year up to 80,000 patients had been on trolleys for more than 24 hours and would reach over 100,000 by the end of the year. Outpatient lists in Dublin had increased by 400 per cent, he added.

“Yet the Minister . . . reacts to this as if he were an independent commentator, as opposed to the person charged with responsibility for management of the health system,’’ Mr O’Brien said.

“I want him to engage immediately.’’ He accused Mr Varadkar of reacting only when there was a crisis. “There is no forward planning or leadership on his part,’’ he said.

“It is about time he came into this house and answered for his tenure in the Department of Health, particularly when we are coming into the winter months when the situation will become more acute.’’

Mr O’Brien said the Minister offered “sympathy and apple pie’’, adding that Mr Varadkar described the situation as “desperate and that he would love to do better’’.

Crisis point

Senator Aideen Hayden of Labour said it was important to acknowledge there had been progress in the health system.

“We have 700 more nurses in the system now than we had this time last year,’’ she said.

Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said all Government representatives had to take responsibility for what was happening in the health services. The situation was at crisis point and it was not fair to blame nurses, he added.

“They are going on strike not because they want to but because they are forced into it by the unbearable conditions in which they are being asked to work,’’ he said.