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

It is a very fair point the Deputy has raised in terms of theatre usage. That is why the development of elective-only facilities is crucial, so that we have theatres that are not impacted by trauma medical admissions and so on, which happens in the major tertiary hospitals. That is key. Proposals for three elective facilities will come to Cabinet in a short while in respect of Galway, Dublin and Cork in terms of new elective facilities.

However, even within the existing suite of hospitals, we should ring-fence elective activity so that we can get optimal use of theatre space for clinicians so that they can get these waiting lists down. We have approximately 75,700 on the inpatient day case list at the moment, 652,000 on the outpatient list and 33,000 on the diagnostics list. Covid has had a huge impact on that.

See this speech in context