Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is exactly the way I was characterising the Deputy's question. It is because two and a half years ago, we were in the middle of a massive expansion of capacity in the mid-west, not just in UHL and the other regional hospitals but in the community. We have opened five primary care centres and a lot more. This time last year, the emergency department situation in UHL was moving in the right direction and up until this year, it looked like the huge additional capacity that was being invested in the community sector and in the acute sector in the mid-west was working. We have seen this year that things moved in the opposite direction, and there was a significant increase in the numbers on trolleys. When we saw that, it was the trigger for asking HIQA to report back.