Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not going to go through the mythology the Deputy articulated at the commencement of his question. I remember the decisions made by the North Eastern Health Board and we have come a long way in medicine since then. Very often now, it is the colleges of the various clinical specialties which determine the critical mass that justifies and sustains, for example, a maternity unit or an emergency department.

Gone are the days when politicians claim we should have an emergency department without any reference to the medical wherewithal that is required to sustain it and make it safe. That is an ongoing battle between the political world and the medical world as medicine advances. That said, our aim for acute and emergency cover in the north west, particularly with Covid-19, is to do everything we possibly can to develop capacity within respective hospitals, and short-term capacity in particular, because there will be pressure on emergency departments. We cannot operate at 95% occupancy during the flu season with the potential of Covid with us as well and, therefore, the HSE is looking at how it can either procure or develop capacity quickly in certain locations to enable it to deal with the urgency of the next six to nine months.

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