Mr. Damien McCallion:

The support team's membership can vary. That can often be just down to timing. Essentially it is about putting people who have expertise and can go in to try to support a site to see what else can be done within the site that perhaps can assist them. We discussed earlier the challenge of trying to take the learning from sites such as Waterford, Portlaoise or Tullamore where the emergency management process is working very well. Two of the people on that team at the moment are from Waterford, so they will assist in that sense.

I wish to be clear that it is an ongoing process. It is not a case of just going in, reporting and walking away. It is about trying to support the site. We saw some improvements but I absolutely accept that did not happen in Limerick with regard to trolleys. There were, however, improvements in what we call delayed transfers of care and in ambulance turnaround.