Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

We have had a credit crunch and it is difficult to get access to private finance for many projects. People are working extremely hard to advance the projects. There is great enthusiasm for them in various parts of the country to provide not just extra capacity by way of acute hospital beds but to allow acute hospitals to be able to reconfigure within themselves to have more private rooms and more infection control rooms. There is no other plan, nor are any resources available for major capital investment in public hospitals. That is a fact. This remains the only plan for major investment in major, acute public hospitals for the foreseeable future. Bankers and project promoters are working closely together. I hope we will be in a position to see the advancement of some of the projects shortly.

See this speech in context