John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and I had a sneak preview of the children's satellite hospital at Tallaght. It is a very fine facility and I very much look forward to it opening. I acknowledge, as the Minister of State did, the work and commitment of staff in Tallaght University Hospital and their efforts in ensuring an uninterrupted provision of emergency care throughout the pandemic.

As the Minister of State noted, Tallaght University Hospital is one of Ireland's largest acute teaching hospitals with 35,000 attendances to the end of August this year, which is incredible. As confirmed by the Minister of State's answer, not only have attendances in the emergency department reached pre-pandemic levels, they have increased by 7.5% compared with 2019, prior to the pandemic. All the other figures the Minister of State highlighted show increases in attendance numbers, reflecting the increase in population and the ageing population in the surrounding area. Over the years, people like Professor Rónán Collins have pointed out that this is not unexpected.

I welcome the 56 new beds and that 50 of them are open. The Minister of State has outlined where they are located across the Tallaght University Hospital campus, which has a substantial footprint in Tallaght. The HSE and the Department need to know that notwithstanding those additional beds, figures are rising. These additional facilities were provided to cope with pre-Covid levels. We now expect some kind of mild surge of people returning to hospital, particularly those who had put it off during the pandemic. I ask the Minister of State to outline to the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, the concern of the local community over the capacity at Tallaght. The HSE needs to constantly review increasing capacity, if necessary.

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