David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

University Hospital Waterford is one of the hospitals that has performed very well. I know that senior officials from the Department visited the hospital last week. There has not been a patient on a hospital trolley in 18 months, or maybe longer, in Waterford. We need to learn from best practice.

The reality is, however, that many of the beds that were promised still have not been delivered. Of course, while I welcome the additional 1,000 beds, 1,200 beds were funded. My understanding is that there are approximately 350 beds of the 1,047 that were committed in 2020. Then, there were additional beds in last year's national service plan. Approximately 350 beds have still not been delivered. It is expected that approximately 140 of those beds will not be delivered until the end of next year. These are beds for which the HSE was given funding.

Part of that goes back to the fact that we cannot recruit the staff quickly enough. Again, the Minister will acknowledge that 10,000 staff were to be recruited. There were approximately half of that last year. Hopefully, we can recruit more next year. All of that goes back to being able to plan and having the capacity needed to put into the hospitals in the first place. Without that, I am afraid that if we do not have a medium to long-term plan where we continue with the sustained investment we need, we will continue to see these long waiting times.

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