Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When it comes to reorganising services, we must always bear in mind that medicine, best practice and clinical science are always changing. There will never be an end point when it comes to reorganising services and we will always be adapting them. What we need in the health service is not disruptive reform but evolutionary reform, which means more things moving from hospitals to primary care, more specialist centres being centralised and more services moving from large central hospitals to smaller ones. I had the opportunity to visit Roscommon on Saturday where I spent a few hours in the hospital. I was impressed to see that there were services in the hospital which were not available in Blanchardstown, where I live, including, for example, a minor injuries unit where one can be seen in less than an hour with a laceration, broken bone or other injury of that nature. It also has a medical assessment unit to which a GP can send a patient during the day for assessment by a consultant. That is a good example of a smaller hospital providing the services those of us in Cork or Dublin would love to be able to offer our constituents.

To perhaps answer the Deputy's question a little better, when I look at trolley and overcrowding numbers across the hospital system, it is evident to me that one may have a great deal of overcrowding in three or four hospitals and none in ten or 11. It is not always down to resources, but is sometimes the result of management. It is clear that more beds are required in Limerick and a plan is in place to provide a new emergency department there. Between now and then, there will be difficulties; perhaps, some work might be moved back out to Ennis or Nenagh in the interim to alleviate the pressure.

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