Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

An Agreed Programme for Government includes a commitment to expand public hospital beds and is in line with the commitment in the health strategy to increase total acute hospital bed capacity by 3,000 by 2011. Substantial investment in additional bed capacity has already taken place in acute hospitals. Funding has been provided to open an additional 900 inpatient beds in public acute hospitals. As of 14 October last, 806 of the beds or day places were in place and the remaining 94 beds or day places will come on stream over the coming months. A further 450 acute beds are at various stages of planning and development under the capital investment programme.

Last July, I announced details of an initiative which will provide up to an additional 1,000 beds for public patients in public hospitals over the next five years. The HSE has been asked to begin to develop an implementation plan and to prioritise proposals with reference to the public hospitals' requirement for additional bed capacity. The additional beds will go most of the way to achieving the commitment in the programme for Government to increase total acute hospital capacity.

The health strategy acknowledges that a significant proportion of additional capacity in the acute hospital system will be supplied in future by private providers. The Department of Health and Children, in conjunction with the HSE, will review public capacity requirements in the acute hospital sector in light of the developments since the health strategy was published and the progress of the initiatives I announced in July.

See this speech in context