Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Obviously, the commitments have been laid down so I need not refer back to them. The Cabinet committee on health operates with the relevant Ministers, the HSE and the Department of Health and Children, reviewing current issues such as accident and emergency services, the capital programme, negotiations with doctors, nurses and general practitioners, out-of-hours services and so forth. That is how the system works.

With regard to our commitments, we are providing our health service with resources. We are working for a better service across the board. There are large numbers of additional staff. Most of the resources have gone towards providing the additional staff required to provide an improved service. There are an additional approximately 7,000 nurses, several hundred extra consultants and a large number of paramedical staff in the health service. The capital programme each year is approximately €500 million. All this is improving the service.

Total health expenditure has increased. Ireland has the fastest rate of growth among OECD countries in spending per capita on health. There are approximately 32,000 extra staff in the health service. There are more than 2,000 medical staff and 7,000 other professionals. There are various initiatives with regard to public and private beds and day care beds. There has been an enormous increase in the number of day care cases, up to approximately 500,000, which is a much better utilisation of the acute hospitals than the old system. Some 1,000 new beds have been put into the system. This year, we have a large capital programme——

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