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

Overall, the number of patients on trolleys this morning was 291. That is 18.5% down on the figure for this day last year, and 17.56% down on the figure for this day two years ago. I appreciate, as always, that the figures vary from hospital to hospital. One could have very high numbers in one hospital and a figure of zero, or of only one or two, in others. Extra beds were brought into the system this year. As the Deputy knows, a decision was taken by Fianna Fáil during the boom to reduce the number of beds in acute hospitals. We reversed that decision around 2014 or 2015 and have been increasing the number of acute beds since then. I will not be making individual decisions on which hospitals the extra beds go to, but there will be extra beds again next year.

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