Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, it is not, it is actually accountability. Deputy Kelly holds me politically accountable. He comes in here and rightly says that I must provide this and if I do not he gives me a very hard time. These are suggestions that came from the hospital when it said that if we gave it a second MRI it would free up a certain number of beds a day. We cannot agree on the number but let us say 20. The hospital said that if we opened more beds in St John's it would help alleviate the pressure. I do not want to use up Deputy Kelly's time, and I am not in a rush, but there is a reality with regard to the statistics at University Hospital Limerick that I want to put on the record of the committee. The total emergency department attendances in Limerick from January to October, as I do not have the figures for November yet, were down on last year. There were 638 fewer people.