Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the work that he has done over the past three and a half to four months, and I also thank his Department officials and all front-line workers for the volume of work and the way they have provided care in a difficult situation.

I wish to ask the Minister about the protocols concerning the swabbing of patients who come into hospitals, with respect to outpatient clinics, patients who are admitted for care and those who require surgery. What will be the procedures for all hospital admissions from now on? I refer also to those patients who will be admitted to private hospitals from 1 July. What relationship will exist between private hospitals and the HSE as they continue to reduce the incidence of the virus?

The second issue I want to touch on is the development of elective care facilities and hospitals, three of which have been identified in the Project Ireland 2040 programme. One of those is in Cork. I raised this recently at a meeting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response. We still have not identified a site. I fully accept that a lot of things were parked in the past three months because priority was given to providing care to those who had contracted coronavirus. We need extra hospital capacity now more than ever. When can we proceed with identifying the site and going through the planning process for the Cork facility and the other elective hospitals?

See this speech in context