Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like to welcome the witnesses and thank them for their presentations. The most striking aspect of the health service is the fact that in every service one looks at, there are log jams. The result is that large numbers of people are denied access to basic healthcare. This has been the case for several years and in most cases there is no indication things are getting any better. I want to start off by talking about the emergency departments in our hospitals and comments that are made on a regular basis by Dr. Fergal Hickey. He talks about the need for additional beds. When we look at the service plan, figures are provided in relation to acute beds and I want to start with those. I refer to the target funded from the national service plan and the winter plans 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Out of 1,228 beds only 907 of those have been delivered. That leaves a remaining 321. What is the schedule for delivering those 321 overdue beds?