Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Those step-down beds are crucial and we have hired them from the private sector because they are not available in the public system. Last year the Tánaiste announced that 1,000 beds in acute hospitals that are designated private will be redesignated as public beds to improve the flow of public patients in our hospitals.

These are just some of the issues concerning beds but there is a whole range of other issues that will help the flow of patients through our accident and emergency departments, who number 1.3 million every year, or 3,300 per day, and ensure they have better services. A small proportion of patients, although it is still too many, wait for long periods for a bed. The idea is that nobody will wait, initially, for over 24 hours in accident and emergency units or over six hours once it has been declared that he or she should be admitted. That is the policy set down by the HSE and the requirement is to get on top of the problem. In the meantime, to give more dignity to patients, we provided additional resources last year and again this year to provide reception wards for people who will be admitted but for whom a bed is not immediately available, to improve the services for them.

These are good initiatives. We require the co-operation of everyone in the health service to improve matters. I welcome comments made in recent days and weeks at various health conferences about people working together to do that. It is not a question of resources. The Government has shown, by increasing resources by over €1 billion per year, that it is prepared to invest in health and will continue to do so.

Let us remember that there are 53 acute hospitals in this country, 35 of which are involved with accident and emergency services in a major way and 13 of which are experiencing difficulties. We must work to overcome those difficulties but that should not take away from the extraordinary work, of a world-class nature, that is being done in our hospitals on a daily basis by the skilled people who are employed in our health services. I accept there is an accident and emergency service problem. We must do our utmost to resolve it as quickly as possible and with the resources, staff and policies, we can do that.

See this speech in context