Mr. Robert Watt:

We do not have any issue with the case. We think there is a very strong argument for having new elective hospitals in Cork and Galway to increase capacity and to separate out scheduled and unscheduled care. This is something clinical colleagues in the HSE keep on stressing in the context of dealing with waiting lists in a more systematic way in the future. We need to separate out different paths and we need more capacity to do that. Our Department is fully supportive of the proposals for Cork, Galway and Dublin.