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

As the Deputy knows, the Supplementary Estimate of €665 million refers to this year. Built into that is the provision for the winter initiative to open additional beds, if we can find and pay the required staff, and to keep fair deal waiting times at between two and four weeks. Its purpose is also to ensure we can keep providing the additional 180,000 additional home care packages and home help hours provided this year. The short answer to the Deputy's question is that all of those measures are built in to the Supplementary Estimate.

I met the general secretary of the INMO on Monday. We have spoken on the phone since then. I met the INMO emergency department nurses committee, at its request, a couple of weeks ago. The current position is that talks have begun at the Workplace Relations Commission, which has now intervened in the matter, and that is the best place for these matters to be resolved, as they almost always are.

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