David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

Okay. I move to the capital plan and will start with Mr. Gloster. I contacted him a year ago privately - and it was a private conversation - about my concerns about the elective hospitals. I had got word at first hand, some from within the Department and some from within the HSE, that there was serious pushback from consultants about the elective-only hospitals. I think we can all understand why. The information I received was the surgical hubs were going to be sufficient. That was the argument that was being made by some within the system. However, everything I have heard since and what we have seen over the last number of months as well as the parliamentary question response I got back recently, which reiterated what was said earlier, indicates the best we are going to get by 2030 for these elective hospitals is the planning. That is not good enough. Mr. Tierney is the assistant secretary, I think, for capital infrastructure. Is it still policy that these elective hospitals will be built and is it purely due to funding issues that they are not being progressed? There is a lot of anticipation in Cork, Galway and obviously Dublin for these elective hospitals. We were told this was going to be reform with a capital R and would separate scheduled from unscheduled care. The surgical hubs will help but I am flabbergasted. I contacted Mr. Gloster privately on this as well. I am just flabbergasted we are at a point where we are not going to see any substantial progress on these elective hospitals until post 2030. That is unacceptable. Is it because the money simply is not there for them in the capital allocation that was recently made?