Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree in terms of capacity. The hospitals, Community Care and the HSE all said we need record levels of investment and we need to add record levels of capacity, which is exactly what has happened. By the end of this year, compared to the start of Covid-19, there will be more than 1,000 extra hospital beds in the system. We will have funded approximately an extra 250,000 diagnostic scans and added more than 15,000 or 16,000 extra workers. We will have built an entire system of community care that did not exist 18 months ago.

The Deputy and I are agreed that record investment and record capacity is required in our public healthcare system. All of that is happening, which is why the waiting lists are now falling in spite of the massive challenges Covid-19 still presents to our healthcare professionals. I would be delighted to send Deputy Cullinane some of the lists of individual hospitals that are doing really well, including University Hospital Waterford in his own constituency. We just need to encourage them and keep going with the momentum.

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