Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The view of the management of the HSE is that 3,000 beds are not required. Its view is that the utilisation of existing beds, plus the 1,300 new beds that have been delivered by this Government and 450 that are planned, should, with better utilisation and more day cases, fulfil the need.

When we were talking about 3,000 beds we were not talking about day cases being where they are now — there are 500,000 such cases per year. At the time, in 1999 to 2000, when the survey took place, there were fewer than 100,000 day cases. The HSE management's argument is that because day cases are being used to this extent, the formulation of figures that gave the 3,000 is not required. This is the international trend, with the utilisation of day cases, more flexible working and more use of technology giving the turnover that means that level of beds is not required.

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