Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate what Deputy Ferris is saying and the support he is showing to the situation there. I take no issue with that or indeed with what happened. It is just disappointing all round that we end up in a situation where it has to come to that and we cannot get agreement and get everybody playing their part. Everybody has a part to play in this.

If I may make an academic, broader point, every time I hear a debate on trolleys I am minded that we sometimes focus on the number of trolleys. I am not talking about Kerry at all in this instance, just general debate around trolleys. What is far more important is the length of time people wait on trolleys. Trolleys will always be a feature. If we had eight empty beds in a hospital waiting for eight people to arrive, there would be something wrong with the hospital that had those eight empty beds at any given time, especially with the challenges we are facing at the moment. We need to move our debate on a bit. That is just an academic point and not in respect of Kerry. It is the length of time people wait on trolleys that we really have to focus on. That is the bigger challenge.

There is a national plan to increase bed capacity ahead of the coming winter. A submission has been made by the South/South West Hospital Group on behalf of University Hospital Kerry for additional beds to be opened there for next winter. That is being progressed by the HSE and the Department at the moment and hopefully it will deliver some additional capacity in the hospital. I cannot put a number on those beds and do not want to do so until the process is complete. This is a national process and a number of hospitals are making submissions ahead of the winter.

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