Mr. Damien McCallion:

On the second part of the Deputy's question, there are a couple of things. This year we have seen substantial growth of nearly 12% on our activity versus 2022. A lot of that is through evening sessions, weekends and various systems to try to maximise what we have at the moment. Separately, through our chief clinical officer a theatre improvement programme is being run across a number of hospitals to see if we can optimise using what are called lean management techniques to try to see what we can do to get more out of the resources we have notwithstanding the pressures on the emergency care side.

To summarise, the hubs will start to come on through 2024. We have one open, one is starting in the first quarter and we are going through the various phases, but the market will dictate the final dates. We know that model works.

On the Deputy's point on activity, we have seen substantial growth this year in the activity across all specialties and across outpatient, inpatient and day cases. That 12% growth is done through a variety of means. Lastly, theatre utilisation is really important because that is about trying to see how can we get more out of what we have at the moment.