Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would have to see how it calculated the figure of 579 but the numbers I have seen are not a million miles away from that. In terms of the figures I have been talking to people about, it is about how we can get up to about 500 ICU beds. I guess it depends on time. I could look at the detail of the ICU situation. I am confident that we are putting in as many next year as the system feels it is capable of facilitating for all the reasons the Deputy has laid out. We have got to do the same thing the following year and the year after that. If we do so, in the next three years we would be adding somewhere between 180 and north of 200 beds. That would almost double our ICU capacity in just three years. It would be a major task but we have to be very ambitious on this because there is a bottleneck. I have had, as I am sure has every member of this committee, many representations over the years from people who were waiting for urgent, often complex surgery. They were good to go. They were brought in the night before and prepped. The doctors and the operating theatre were ready to go and a the last minute a major trauma case came through the emergency department doors and they were told, "Sorry, we have to postpone the operation again because there is not an ICU bed available." It has to be guaranteed and ready for the person, and that is something we have to address.