David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

What builds a hospital is funding, bricks and mortar and the ability to do it. I am going to finish on my opinion, which is the Department does not have the money for it. We know it needs it and that it asked for billions more in capital expenditure but with all the other requirements that are there in terms of regulatory requirements, the maternity hospital and finishing the children's hospital the Department does not have the funding to progress these elective hospitals beyond planning. What that means for people in Cork, Dublin and everybody who needs these elective hospitals, which will separate scheduled from unscheduled care, is that they are not now going to happen. Mr. Tierney can tell me all he likes about them getting to planning, but that is not good enough. This was a big part of Sláintecare and it is a big step back that we are now not going to see any progress on those hospitals until beyond 2030. It is walking away from some of the reforms we have all signed up to.