Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

Elements of what are done during a crisis are not sustainable. A system that is largely built to be at its highest levels of activity for five days out of seven cannot immediately become a seven days out of seven service. We need to identify which parts of what we have done recently have had the most impact. We accept that the learning process, the planning for next winter and longer-term planning need to start as soon as we get out of the current crisis. We accept elements of what the Deputy has said, but as Dr. Henry has stated, we are chasing to catch up with a different set of problems that have the same symptom each year, that being, delays in admissions to hospital, otherwise known as trolley waits. In terms of capacity, process and the integrated structures that Sláintecare has laid out for us, we need to catch up with a demographic that is ahead of us.