Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I must say I agree with much of what the Deputy has just said. On building up the acute capacity, it is the biggest expansion in a single year ever to have been attempted, as far as I am aware, and the reports back from the HSE are very positive. On the Deputy's point, there are areas where the planned expansion is not on target, largely because of Covid and the cyberattack, and obviously it has been a very difficult year. However, specifically on what we are talking about, there is really good progress and they are doing really well. The Deputy quite rightly referenced access to diagnostics. One area we have invested a lot in this year is access to diagnostics for GPs, which obviously takes some of the pressure off the acute system. The feedback I am getting from GPs, where that has been invested in, is very positive. It is keeping patients in their community for treatment. It is really a matter of doing all this so that the patient pathway the whole way through is increased so people can stay in the community and if they do need to go into hospital, they can get back out to the community as quickly as possible.

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