A RECOMMENDATION has been made against building a second emergency hospital for Limerick and the wider Mid-West region, it has been claimed.
Independent MEP for Ireland South Michael McNamara is questioning the HSE’s Mid-West’s reported recommendation against the construction of a new Model 3 hospital in the region.
He said that it is “very difficult to reconcile with the persistent crisis in unscheduled emergency care at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).”
Mr McNamara says the HSE’s reasoning is that “a new hospital would be difficult to staff, with a preference instead for expanding the current UHL site or developing a second linked site – but maintaining a single emergency department.”
However, he refuted that by claiming that staffing allocations are based on beds, not patients, and UHL’s patient load is uniquely high.
In March 2025, a comprehensive submission was formally made to HIQA by the HSE Mid-West, overseen by Dr Terence Hennessy, Regional Clinical Lead for Strategy & Development.
It followed an extensive regional consultation involving 25 structured focus groups across UHL, and engagement with around 350 stakeholders from every corner of the Mid-West health system.
The groups had come to a consensus on the urgent need to shift away from fragmented and under-resourced models.
The submission proposes a more integrated and sustainable approach to Unscheduled Emergency Care (UEC) delivery, built around a fully functional acute floor and UEC capability at UHL, Strengthening Model 2 hospitals like Ennis and Nenagh to maximise their role in Injury Units and Medical Assessment Units, and investing in community services to reduce avoidable hospital admissions and improve discharge flow
In a statement to the Limerick Post, HSE Mid West said they have made a submission to HIQA as part of their statutory review to inform the delivery of safe quality urgent and emergency care in the Mid-West region of Ireland.
This submission, they say, is one over 1,100 that have been made to HIQA.
“So too was the reconfiguration recommendation made in good faith – the one that consigned an entire generation in the Mid-West to a lower standard of healthcare than those living elsewhere in the Republic. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… In the Mid-West, we bought a pup with reconfiguration. We shouldn’t make the same mistake again.”
“We can’t keep treating UHL like it can absorb the entire region without serious structural reform,” McNamara said. “This is no longer about local management. It’s about national planning, political will, and system-wide responsibility”, MEP McNamara insisted.
