Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Government has proposed to provide additional beds in our hospitals. Everybody acknowledges that they are required. I admit there is some difference of opinion on the number of beds. Everybody knows that additional beds are required in our hospitals. The Government proposed to get private companies to develop private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals. It believed that such a scheme would provide the additional beds which are needed. The Minister of State, Deputy McGuinness, said on Sunday night that the scheme has run into a funding problem — that it is blocked, in effect. We know it has not gone ahead for the last three years. Can the Taoiseach tell us whether it is going ahead? How many hospitals are to be built? Have agreements been signed in respect of many of them? What is the funding difficulty? If the scheme is not going ahead, by what alternative means does the Government intend to provide the beds that are required in our hospitals? How does it intend to ensure that unfortunate patients can get hospital beds rather than being stuck on a trolley in a corridor, with all the indignity that involves?

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