Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

I will move back to the issue of hospitals and the use of space. The Minister said there is a reduction of 30% of the throughput by consultants. In fairness, there are an awful lot of additional consultants appointed, but the problem is about access to space to work in. That is one of the challenges, especially in the smaller hospitals. For instance, we were in Cork last week where we saw in the bowel cancer screening. If the accommodation was available at the hospital, the unit there could double the number of patients it is dealing with. Again, this comes back to the timeframe relating to rolling out the infrastructure. While we have appointed all these extra consultants, is what I have outlined one of the reasons we have not provided either the necessary equipment or the space for those consultants to operate in?