Mr. Paul Reid:

The Deputy referenced Sláintecare in the last part of his question. Sláintecare is the whole-of-government plan to address the structural, infrastructural and funding deficits the health service has experienced over many years. The Deputy highlighted some of them there. I refer to what will make this better over the coming years. First, we welcome the significant extra investment of 20% for next year. That will provide extra bed capacity that we have not seen in a number of years, which the Deputy touched on at the end of his contribution. I will mention the other components of it. Sláintecare set out a requirement for at least 2,600 beds, incrementally brought into the system. That would be 7,500 if reform was not done at the same time. The 1,150 beds we have planned between this year and next year are welcome. It set out the need to look at elective hospitals because we know that the capacity and the organisation of the health system-----