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

On the issue of ICU capacity, as I outlined earlier, we went from 225 beds at the start of the year to close to 300 beds now. The number of patients in ICU with Covid-19 is around 25. We have the ability to go to 360 beds with surge capacity, and there is also the option of using the private hospitals. That option was available to us in the spring and it can be available again. Those are the facts of the situation.

I know what Deputy Doherty is trying to do, namely, play the blame game. He is trying to set it up so that if the country has to go back into severe lockdown, he can blame the Government and say it is all down to hospital capacity.

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