Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I look forward to seeing the document. Nobody has a monopoly on the solutions to this so I very much look forward to seeing the proposals. To respond directly to the Deputy's question, through the winter plan and this year so far, an additional 834 acute beds have been delivered, with another 229 expected this year. In addition, 73 sub-acute beds have been added with 40 more planned for this year. There has also been substantial funding to increase home support hours, as the Deputy will be aware. The strategic plan for critical care is now in place. It aims to increase ICU capacity to 321 by the end of this year and to 446 in the longer term. The €52 million provided for implementation of this plan will allow for an additional 66 beds to be put in place. The HSE has advised that 42 of those 66 beds are now open, bringing our baseline capacity to 297 beds as of right now.

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