David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My problem, if I can make this point, Chair, is that we have the Minister making these big announcements, which are great, that we are going to have all of this additional capacity. We have hospitals which tell us they are waiting for capacity. We have 1,200 beds that are funded. We have hundreds of beds not delivered, and we are being told it is because we cannot get the staff and there are all of these challenges. Once we fund the beds we should be able to deliver them at a time when we have a real crisis in our hospitals. I have one final question on capacity, because again this goes to the heart of the winter plan. The Minister announced 51 emergency department consultants. How many of those are in place right now? How many have been employed in the last number of weeks?