Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with the Deputy's analysis. Our hospitals are overcrowded. There is not enough capacity. We need a bigger health service in terms of bed capacity. The Sláintecare report, which the Deputy helped to co-author, provides a roadmap in this respect. I look forward to going before the Joint Committee on Health and Children next Thursday to outline the steps we have taken in this regard. The bed capacity review I will receive by the end of this year will tell us how many hospital beds and other beds we need right across the health services and for the next 30 years. It will set out how many beds will be needed if we stand still and do nothing and how many beds will be needed if we implement Sláintecare. The Deputy is right when he says we need to get on with expanding capacity. As of today, I have to use all the levers at my disposal, including more social care, more community intervention teams, opening transitional care beds, encouraging people to get the flu and trying to encourage people to go to the appropriate place, which is not always the emergency department.

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