Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Because time against is me, I want to put a quick question to the Department of Health. It was known that only an additional 326 ventilators could be deployed because ventilators do not operate on their own; they need to operate within a hospital system, with a bed and all the supporting staff around them. Yet 1,900 ventilators were sanctioned. That is quite apart from the fact that the Department then tried to procure 3,500 ventilators, which is ten times what we needed. Why did it sanction the purchase of five times the number we needed?