Mr. Tony O'Brien:

In terms of what we are doing there, I gave some of the details to Deputy Fitzpatrick. The Deputy is right to congratulate Margaret Swords who is now the group chief operating officer for the RCSI hospitals group that includes the Lourdes. Some 15 beds are immediately being worked through for patients currently in the hospital, while 24 private beds are coming on stream at the end of the month. The hospital and our social care division are working with a private provider because the acuity of the patients might not be what was originally envisaged by that provider, so a little bit of upskilling is required for their staff, which is being progressed.

The repatriation of all the Cavan trauma patients who have ongoing medical needs has been agreed with the hospital. There is a modular build in the hospital with provision for 20 beds which will be available at the end of February. A recruitment campaign is under way and a community intervention team has been introduced and is working with the hospital now. So all these measures are designed to address the stress. If these things do not work we do have one or two other tricks up our sleeve.