Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

One should talk to the people who know the position. Public capacity has been increased by some 446 beds. It is not, therefore, a question of 50 beds.

The HSE is very aware of the problems at Beaumont Hospital and has been working with it to try to increase capacity. As I stated yesterday, to try to avoid the problems experienced by the accident and emergency staff, the out-of-hours doctors systems and rapid access clinic in Smithfield have been opened. The latter is directly helping north Dublin. The facilities in James Connolly Memorial Hospital associated with the hospital-in-the-home concept have been put into operation and the community intervention teams are in place. All of these measures are directly designed to help the people to whom Deputy Kenny is referring. The schemes are working well and were not in operation 12 months ago. This does not mean that from time to time there will be no difficulties in some hospitals. These difficulties must be managed and will not all be solved overnight.

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