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

I thank Deputies Jonathan O'Brien and Derek Nolan for their constructive contributions. I thank Deputies Boyd Barrett and Finian McGrath for their contributions.

Deputy O'Brien is correct that delayed discharges are part of this problem, numbering 850 in December which we have reduced to 750 currently. However, the difficulty is that 110 new delayed discharges come in every week while only 100 are discharged. We need to get ahead of that and stay ahead of it for a sustained period of time.

Deputy Nolan's suggestion with regard to Galway is very good. We have external people in Tallaght hospital at the moment who are working on a hospital redesign project. They will move on to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. If there is a willingness - because willingness is essential - by everyone in Galway to embrace it there is no reason they cannot be included in that external review and hospital redesign process.

Deputy Boyd Barrett's information is not correct. There may well have been 2,000 beds closed in the system over the past ten years but these are not all acute beds because some of them are community beds. Many of them have been demolished, many are not HIQA compliant and many have since been turned into radiology departments and endoscopy suites and so on-----

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