David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on the theme of the elective hospitals. I will go first to Mr. O'Connor. Why is it taking so long to progress these? As Deputy Burke said, we have had numerous conversations with the Minister for Health about the need to pick up the pace in relation to elective hospitals. We know the elective hospitals will reform the health services. I use the word "Reform" with a capital "R", in many ways, because they will separate scheduled from unscheduled care. In my view, they will play their part in removing private care from public hospitals. They were a big, central part of Sláintecare. Why is the case that as we meet today we are still only at the business case stage for Dublin and the design stage for the other two? What is holding it up?