REMEMBER ENDA KENNY’s pledge to “end the scandal of patients on trolleys”?

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The 2007 election campaign flyer has often come back to haunt Fine Gael in times of particularly acute hospital overcrowding.

Asked today about the ad, Minister for Health Leo Varadkar admitted that any promise to completely end the trolley problem might not be wise.

Varadkar told reporters that he believed no health system in the world has managed to fully address the issue.

“Speaking as somebody who worked in the health service for a long time, I don’t think it would ever be wise for any politician to make a promise to eliminate trolley waits entirely, because we know that there isn’t a health service that’s actually managed to achieve that,” he said.

I’d be very loath to make that kind of promise. It’s almost like promising that there would never be a child leaving a school illiterate or that crime would only ever go down.

I think anyone who makes those kind of promises doesn’t understand the true complexities of what we face.

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Varadkar was speaking as the number of patients waiting for hospital beds reached 516 this morning, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

St Vincent’s University Hospital and Beaumont Hospital were among the busiest hospitals in the country, with 37 and 30 on trolleys respectively.

The minister said that the figures are “about 10 or 15%” down on last year, adding that it will take “a number of years” to solve the issues facing overcrowded units.

He also urged anyone who can avoid going to emergency departments to do so.

“We’re not telling people not to go, but the emergency departments are somewhere to go if it’s urgent, if it’s life threatening or if you’re sent there by a GP,” he said.

Read: HSE publishes 2016 service plan with €100m shortfall for hospitals

Life for Ireland’s emergency department nurses: ‘A patient could come in with a heart attack and wait on a trolley’