Dr. Donal de Buitléir:

In addition to this proposal, there is another element of Sláintecare. The additional capacity is 3,000 beds by 2030 as far as I recall, which may be something the committee teases out in its later session about all the other improvements. This is just one part of a programme to improve the health service for the people. It is an important part of that but it is not the only part. A lot of other things happen. For example, one of the key problems is the availability of diagnostics. Apparently, it is quite slow to get access to diagnostics in the public system but access to diagnostics can be had much more quickly in the private system Dublin. That means a patient can have the evidence of diagnosis more quickly and that puts him or her up the queue because he or she knows what his or her health condition is compared to someone who does not know because they have to wait. That is an important part of the programme to improve the health service.