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

It proposes, alongside reforms to our health service, that we will need 2,500 additional acute beds between now and 2021.

I should repeat what I said. The Government did not need a bed capacity review report to tell it that we need additional beds in hospitals. We have been increasing the number of beds for the past two years at the rate of approximately 150 to 200 a year. That work was under way, even before the report was produced. Even if there was no overcrowding in hospitals, we would still need to increase bed capacity because of our growing and ageing population and the new things the health service can do.

See this speech in context