Waiting times for Tallaght Hospital ED highest in the state

WAITING times for Tallaght University Hospital ED are the highest in the state, according to data released by the Department of Health.

Patients presenting to the emergency department at Tallaght are waiting to be seen for an average of over 12 hours.

“No one turning up to A&E should be waiting half a day to be seen,” said Mark Ward, Sinn Fein TD for Dublin Mid-West and the party spokesperson on Dublin.

“Tallaght is my local hospital and it’s scandalous that people are waiting over 12 hours.”

The data was released in response to a parliamentary question from Deputy Ward’s party colleague, Kerry TD Pa Daly, who requested “a breakdown of average accident and emergency waiting list times, broken down by hospital, in each of the years 2015 to date”.

The data for 2025, provided from up until April of this year, shows the average wait time for patients at Tallaght ED is 12.6 hours.

This is almost twice as high as the average wait time across all hospitals in the HSE Dublin and Midlands Area, which is 7.4 hours.

The next highest wait times at a Dublin hospital in the area are 8.4 hours at St James’s Hospital ED.

“Looking at the figures released in the PQ response waiting times are getting worse Tallaght, under the various Ministers for Health,” Deputy Ward continued.

“We have a GP shortage in the area, with people left with no place to turn to other than their local hospital.”

Figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisations (INMO) Trolley Watch show that 419 patients were waiting on trolleys at Tallaght University Hospital ED for the month of May (up until Wednesday, May 28).

While this is the second highest in the Dublin area after St Vincent’s Hospital with 436 patients, it’s only 6th highest in the country overall, and far behind the numbers at University Hospital Limerick, who saw 1,872 patients left on trolleys in the same period.

“We only have our local Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs to thank for this failure, their support for successive governments have enabled this disaster to become the norm,” Deputy Ward said.

“The people of Dublin Mid- West and South Dublin deserve better than 12 hours waiting in accident and emergency, they have been waiting too long for a change, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have not been able to deliver this.”