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

As we all acknowledge, there has been an enormous improvement in recent years in care for patients with cystic fibrosis. The report produced by Cystic Fibrosis Ireland lays out very clearly and starkly how much services have improved. The next big step, of course, is the provision of the unit in Beaumont Hospital which will improve services for cystic fibrosis patients in north Dublin, in particular, including my constituency. The Government is very committed to doing so.

On the genetics issue, I have not been briefed on it, but I will check it out and get a reply for Deputy Brendan Howlin. It sounds like the kind of thing in which we ought to be involved, but I do not know enough about it to say that definitively.

With regard to consultants not on the specialist register, I will have to be briefed on that matter or get a more detailed reply on it for the Deputy. I am not sure whether they are new or long-standing appointments. I am around long enough to remember when the specialist register was put in place. It might have been about 15 years ago; therefore, it is possible that some of the consultants are people who were appointed to their positions before the specialist register was created, but that may not be the case. They may also be new consultants and, in some cases, they might potentially be temporary. They might be locums filling posts. Obviously, it is better to have somebody filling a post on a locum basis than to have nobody, although obviously it is not ideal that such a person would not be on the specialist register.

On the overcrowding in emergency departments, the HSE records 345 patients as being on trolleys this morning, but obviously that number falls throughout the day and will be substantially lower by now. It peaks at around 8 a.m. We have added additional beds this year. In the past six months an additional 204 hospital beds have been opened, including 22 in St. Vincent's University Hospital; 25 in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital; 17 in Limerick; 28 in Galway; 19 in Waterford; 20 in Beaumont Hospital; 23 in St. James's Hospital; 14 in St. Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny; 24 in the Mater Hospital; and 11 in Naas. Deputies will be aware that the decision was made by the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government back in 2009 or 2010 - a political decision, not one linked with finance - to reduce the number of acute hospital beds in the country. I reversed that decision when Minister for Health and we have since been adding acute bed capacity.

In terms of additional beds, in CUH there will be an additional 30 beds this year. There will also be additional ICU and HDU beds in the Mater Hospital. An extension to the new emergency department in Drogheda will come online in 2018. There is also a modular build planned for South Tipperary General Hospital which should be in place by the end of the year, most likely in the third quarter. As Deputies can see, we are increasing hospital bed capacity, but we are going to need to do a lot more.

It is also evident to me - I have said this before and it is important to say it again - that it is not just a question of capacity.

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