Mr. Ronnie Downes:

That is a fair question. It harks back to when last I was before the committee a number of weeks ago, talking about the public service performance report. I made the point in that context that we as a Department, and colleagues in other Departments, are putting a stronger focus on specifying the outputs and the impacts that can be reported on and interrogated by the Oireachtas committees and so on.

The Minister was clear that the additional €1.2 billion-odd to be invested in health need to be linked to measurable objectives that went towards addressing the gaps identified in the capacity review a number of years ago; specifically, the beds, the critical care beds and the staffing required to make those beds operational and come into service. We in the Department have been in dialogue with colleagues in the Department of Health and the HSE to move forward that discussion.

If we have time, I might ask my colleague, Mr. Deane, to comment on this point. He is in charge of the health Vote in the Department.