Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

We, and I, accept responsibility for our actions and inactions during the current crisis. This is a given. To be frank, I do not accept there has been a failure of leadership. Regarding everybody knowing this was going to happen, we did know we were facing a difficult winter. We had done a significant level of modelling, and I will ask the chief clinical officer to talk about the complexity of that modelling in a minute, and what has occurred has been beyond or at least at the most pessimistic level of the modelling. The modelling is based on looking at recent years, and the RSV virus has come earlier and much harder than in recent flu seasons, as has influenza. At the same time we have had Covid-19. The three together could be predicted but these levels were not predicted.

Turning to why we did not have a three-year plan in place three or four years ago, I cannot speak for the history of this situation. Going forward, our view is that it is the correct thing to do. I believe that will be acknowledged. Equally, and particularly since 2020, 2021 and 2022, there has been substantial investment in capacity. This has included up to €1.7 billion in additional funding for permanent strengthening of the health service. What has this delivered? Up to the end of last year, it has delivered an additional 970 beds, and 209 more are coming this year. In home support, even though we have not been able to address it, we have moved to a situation where rather than people waiting for hours in the context of funding, they are now waiting, unfortunately, for us to get enough staff. It is still a problem if people are waiting but certainly progress is being made.

In respect of enhanced community care, the €240 million invested there has led to 2,200 staff being recruited. We now have 21 of each of our 30 community specialist older persons teams and community specialist chronic disease teams in place, as well as nearly all the 90 community healthcare networks.