Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that there is an ongoing and very severe problem with overcrowding in University Hospital Limerick. I point out for the record of the House that the number of people waiting for a bed in our hospitals today is 60 lower than was the case this time last year. That is a reflection of the additional beds and resources that have been put into the system. I would have to refer the Deputy's question to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly. I do not want to raise expectations in this regard. I absolutely appreciate where Deputy Crowe is coming from, but the very solid advice we get from emergency department consultants, who are the ones on the front line dealing with the sickest patients, is not that we need more emergency departments but that we need further consolidation of the existing ones.

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