Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am satisfied, but this is not easy. I might ask Mr. Derek Tierney, who is leading it from within the Department, to comment. We are doing something that has not been done before. One issue we can all agree on is that it takes the State far too long to build hospitals, wards, and new bed blocks but what we saw during Covid-19 was something new. There were derogations for planning and rapid building technologies were used. What I have done with the Department is go through systematically all the things that slow us down.

There are cases where we can have derogations on planning. There are locations we can use that do not require environmental impact assessments. There are rapid build technologies that were used in Kilkenny, for example, which Wexford is very interested in using. We can do the procurement in greater lots, so a full procurement is not required for every hospital. When all of that is added together, I believe we will get to an accelerated beds plan.