Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A single person on a trolley is one too many. I had to refer to the improvements and investment under way that aim to address these matters over the medium term and into the long run. The Minister for Health will continually review the winter initiative with the HSE. There is a Cabinet sub-committee on health that will review the status of that plan regularly. That is the plan that has delivered an additional 950 home care packages, an additional 58 transitional care beds and is expanding community intervention teams that are at the heart of making sure the pressure the Deputy refers to does not reach an even more acute level in the early part of next year.

I have acknowledged that the bed capacity the Deputy referred to needs to be improved and I have pointed to the improvements that we are making. That winter initiative is going to put in place an additional 55 acute beds and 18 step-down beds to deal with the matter the Deputy is referring to. Of course, this is something that will always be reviewed by Government because we want to ensure that the investment under our plans is in place and delivers the improvements that people need. Whatever progress is being made, and progress is being made, we want to get to a situation in which fewer and fewer people are experiencing the kind of pressure that we acknowledge they are experiencing.

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