David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will put one last question, if I may. We had all of the healthcare unions before us a number of weeks ago. There was much understandable frustration where they were representing their members who felt - in my view, rightly so - overworked, exhausted and at burnout. I want to relay to the Minister one remark that was made by the representative of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association: "There is no doubt that we are facing a tsunami of missed or late care. Unlike the Covid crisis, we know exactly the scale of this." The representative further stated: "There is no doubt the public health system as structured does not have the capacity, either in terms of personnel or in terms of infrastructure and beds, to deal in a timely fashion with the tsunami." The Minister himself referenced all of the cancelled care and all of the care that is on hold. We all accept that is the case.

We also heard that there are hundreds of thousands of hospital appointments that did not happen this year to date, and possibly will not for the rest of this year - they certainly did not happen last year - that will add to the problems as well. Can the Minister set out what additional capacity will be put in place because we cannot expect those on the front line, who are exhausted and at breaking point, to continue to provide the service that we need and to try to deal with all the levels of catch-up care that will need to be done without sufficient additional capacity?

A hospital manager at University Hospital Waterford in my constituency told me the hospital made an application for a rapid build 72-bed modular unit with single isolation rooms, which is what the healthcare unions are telling us they need, and it has not received the funding. It was not approved in the capital plan. Hospitals are making the applications for funding to ensure that they have the capacity to deal with these issues and it is not being provided. What additional capacity will be put in place to deal with this tsunami of missed care that is coming at us, and can the Minister outline when all of that care that has paused will be resumed? If the Minister does not have the answers to hand, can he send on a detailed note on timeframes as to when that care would be recommenced?