Mr. Seán Egan:

I will take that question. The Deputy is right that we need to look at the way in which services are configured in the round. In the context of the model 2 hospitals, as our CEO stated, they are working very well and efficiently. They actually provide a good template for other model 2 hospitals within the region. In our evaluation of the data around where patients present, we can see, as Ms Fitzgerald outlined, that the model of distribution of where patients present differs within the region because the configuration differs. If one looks at the triage score for patients who present to Limerick, it is actually much lower, meaning that the level of acuity of patients who actually present to Limerick is higher than it would be in many of the other emergency departments around the country. What that means, essentially, is that model 2 hospitals are carrying a lot of the heavy weight that is required around patients who do not need to go to an emergency department and can be very safely and effectively managed in the local injury units, medical assessment units and so on. Recently, we have seen a significant additional investment within the region in the medical assessment units. As part of our assessment approach, we would have visited those units. We can see that they are providing a really vital service, particularly for those older patients that the Deputy mentioned who have myriad conditions that need to be managed in an appropriate setting. The model does work in so far as the way that it is configured but what does not work is the fact that the capacity within Limerick is not enough to deal with those patients who rightly present to that particular setting.