Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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I thank everyone for their attendance. It is important to recognise all of the hard work that is going on within the Department and the start of the progress that is being made to turn things around in respect of waiting lists. That is very welcome. Obviously, there is a long way to go.

I wish to talk about infrastructure and beds in particular. I have to express some concern that there seems to be backtracking in the proposal for three elective hospitals. This was a key recommendation from Sláintecare. It was based on experience in NHS Scotland, where huge progress was being made. There was a recognition of the need for an elective hospital that did not have all of the pressures and threats from an emergency department, ED, that operated efficiently and was essentially doing operations. That was the key concern. There is the example here of the Santry sports clinic, which is efficient and has a high throughput and that was the idea. In Scotland, they bought a private hospital and used it for elective purposes. They then built a second one.

I feel the Department is moving away from that. Certainly, there has been an inordinate delay in progressing that proposal. With Cork and Galway, it is being said that they would be essentially day hospitals to start. The location for the Dublin one has not yet been announced. Instead of that, the Department is talking about starting work on 11 different sites to produce 1,500 hospital beds, which will be latched onto existing pressurised hospitals with their EDs and all that goes with that. That is a mistake. The Department should be progressing the three hospitals that will operate efficiently and motor through the waiting lists for orthopaedics and a whole lot of other specialties, and can do that without anything else getting in the way or operations having to be cancelled because of pressure from EDs. Will the Minister explain why there is that change in policy and divergence from a key recommendation in Sláintecare?