Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I would like to believe that if we had every one of the beds today, it would sort out all of the problems in accident and emergency units, but that is not so and Deputy Rabbitte would not believe that either. The Government has provided and built new high-cost acute beds and will continue to do so in the capital programme for this year in respect of a number of new units.

I was making a point on day care beds. I am not confusing the issue with accident and emergency units. When one has more day care cases, with which our medical profession is doing well — we have 500,000 day cases whereas we used to have 10,000 or fewer not that many years ago — it takes away the need to have as many acute beds. We have provided——

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