Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I will say two things. The first is that I feel a huge obligation – this is why I want to do the weekend and five over seven – in the position I am in to demonstrate to the public the value of, and getting the value out of, what we have already got. We got an increase in our workforce of more than 20%. There are 25,000 additional people since a couple of years ago. Like the Deputy said, we have very good inpatient services that work 24-7, but our routine healthcare system is still predominantly a Monday-to-Friday, daytime system, supplemented by insourcing and outsourcing to support waiting lists at the weekend. The first thing is to use what we have.

The second thing has to do with planning what we need going into the future. To be fair to the Minister and the Department, we now have an agreement with the Government - it came off the back of the Frank Clarke report in Limerick - whereby we are not planning to build new beds without planning well ahead for the staff we need around them. This regional executive officer will open 96 beds in Limerick in September and she has already recruited the workforce to open them. That is unheard of in how we line up our planning, so the situation is improving.