Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

May I ask a follow-up question about the beds? Mr. Mulvany says there are not beds just floating around. A couple of years ago people were talking about empty wards and so on. Mr. Mulvany says beds have to be built in the various places they need to be built. That will not happen in the next 12 months, if I understand how long it takes to build these things. Are we therefore looking at another series of winters of this continuing to happen, or does Mr. Mulvany see a year or a point in the next two, three, four or five years where the HSE can say, "This is the target, we will be out of this and we will not have this winter problem we have every winter?" Sorry - I am not sure if I am entirely clear. Are we looking at having this next year, the year after and the year after, given the amount of time it sometimes takes to build these beds? I acknowledge that not all the beds needed are in a brand-new hospital setting.