Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Significant investment is going into Sligo University Hospital and the budget has increased by about €30 million up to €160 million in the past few years. There has been quite an additional increase in staffing as well. There are new beds. Deputy Harkin will be aware that I pushed very hard for four new ICU beds to be opened up. The HSE is now moving to staff them directly. In direct response to Deputy Harkin's question on whether we will use private capacity to get people the care they need, we will do so and we are doing so. Significant funding is in place through the National Treatment Purchase Fund and the waiting list action plan to use that. We want to use public facilities wherever possible, but given the number of people waiting, we are using all of the available private healthcare facilities for now. Ultimately, we are in the middle of the biggest expansion in capacity in the public service since the foundation of the HSE to make sure the public service can handle all of the demand from the country.

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