James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We did not allow that to happen this year. We did not have 569 patients on trolleys in January 2011, which is a little more than 18 months ago.

The special delivery unit in conjunction with the clinical programmes and front line staff knew what the diagnosis was and prescribed the treatment between them and the consequence of that today is that despite €1.75 billion being taken out of the system and another €750 million being taken out of it this year, we have 20% fewer people lying on trolleys, over 13,000 fewer people so far this year. That is a fact and something that is measurable. Those are INMO figures.

To guarantee the integrity of the count, we accept the figures of the INMO, and we go further, we measure it three times a day and now we can predict what is going to happen and take action.

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