Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

After receiving such clarification on the first matter, Deputy Carey is now trying to get me into awful trouble by having me reveal details of the Government's capital plan, which will be considered at the Cabinet meeting in Sligo tomorrow and will be published in the afternoon. He is correct that the people of the mid-west have been left without proper hospital bed facilities. Bizarrely in the past, Governments in boom times thought it was a good idea to reduce the number of beds in our hospitals. Thankfully, that is not the policy of this Government. We are committed to expanding the number of beds.

I commissioned a bed capacity review, which I published in full and is available on my Department's website. It stated that even after the health service is reformed, we will still require 2,600 additional acute hospital beds by 2031. I am conscious that the people of the mid-west and in the University Limerick hospital group have a shortage of hospital beds and require more. I am pleased we were able to invest €25 million of taxpayers’ money in a new state-of-the-art emergency department in Limerick, serving the people of Clare. However, it is clear we need to put more beds in.

I am aware there is a 96 bed ward proposal from the hospital group. I would like that to be looked upon favourably. It is badly needed and should have been delivered years ago. It is terrible it was not delivered during the time of the previous economic boom. I am determined we will deliver it.

I am also conscious we need to relocate and redevelop the maternity hospital and move it alongside the acute adult hospital in Limerick. The Government knows the needs of the people of Clare. Deputy Carey and his Oireachtas colleagues from Clare highlight them regularly.

I hope that, as part of the €115 billion capital plan that we will publish, we will tomorrow be able to show good faith and commitment to the people of Clare in terms of advancing some of those important projects.

The outpatients department at Ennis general hospital has also been reviewed in terms of quality and capacity requirements. As the Deputy will probably know, the HSE is in the process of procuring new accommodation for the department, which I hope is good news for the people of Ennis.

See this speech in context