Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It will be progressed as quickly as possible. I intend to make funding available to continue with the work in the capital plan for next year. As projects progress and we move through the various stages, the costs involved increase, as the Deputy will be aware. In the short term, before the new development is in place, we are making available many more resources for the emergency team. There are more emergency medicine consultants, healthcare assistants and nurses, and also more emergency medicine. Additional beds have been made available. We are finding that the most important thing we put into the emergency department is not capacity but discharge options for patients. Despite the many millions of additional euro being invested in home care, the approval of many more home care packages and the investment in nursing homes and step-down facilities, the delayed discharge level is still higher than we want it to be. The most important thing we are doing probably is working with the community to discharge patients, freeing up the beds for patients admitted to the emergency department.

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