David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One of the frustrations for committee members is, when some of us engage with management of hospitals in our constituencies, and I have dealt with many because of my national brief, they all say they have submitted proposals for additional beds. We then see, however, that it takes a long time to deliver those beds. Has any analysis been done of how we can speed up that process? It strikes me, when we look at the October 2020 budget for the year 2021, 1,147 beds or whatever it was were to be delivered. My understanding is not all of those will be delivered even this year. Some of them might be carried over into 2024. That is far too long.