Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. According to figures we received from the Department, an extra 142 beds were provided in 2007. I am not into the detail. The point I am making is that over 2,000 beds were provided. The number of beds was then cut by 800. In fact, another 450 beds were taken out in 2011 and 2012. We can go into who was in charge in each of those years, but that is not the point. I do not know whether the Cabinet committee on social policy has any bearing on the preparations for the budget. In the run-up to the budget, surely we need far more transparency about what it will take to deal with something like an accident and emergency crisis. When I asked the Taoiseach about Letterkenny University Hospital, I did not get any answer from him other than the general kind of stuff that drives people mad. He spoke about an allocation of €30 million. The fate of the specific bed capacity proposal that was made by Letterkenny University Hospital is a concrete example and illustration of the inertia in the system. The hospital authorities asked last summer for €1.8 million to open 20 beds. If that money had been provided, it would have enabled the hospital to do substantial work during this winter's crisis. It is alarming that this money was not provided and, as a result, we drifted into the crisis and people experienced significant distress.

I could not agree more with what Deputy Boyd Barrett has said about housing, which was raised repeatedly during the first clinics of January. It is awful that mothers and other young women who are doing everything they can to give something to their kids do not know where they will be in two months' time. I do not get a sense that the Government understands the gravity of the housing crisis. People with housing difficulties must go bananas when they see the figures and hear suggestions that targets are being exceeded. If we talk to people on the ground and go into their houses-----

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