Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Between the Deputy and the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Waterford is well represented in Dáil Éireann. It is also well represented in Seanad Éireann. Let us not lose sight of the fact that over the past three years, we have seen an historic expansion of capacity. More beds have been added than at any time in a very long time, there has been more access to diagnostics than in a very long time and more new hospitals signed off than in God knows how long. We are up to nearly 20,000 additional whole-time equivalents in the HSE. We have built up an entire primary care system from scratch over the past two and a half years and, therefore, we are in the middle of an historic expansion of public service capacity. I agree that we must get faster at delivering beds and physical infrastructure, including e-health. That is the focus of this - not signed off or agreed but progressing this plan around a rapid build programme.

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