Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the premise of Deputy Cullinane's question, which is that more capacity has been required. As the Deputy will be aware, we have added more beds, more hospital-based staff, including clinicians and non-clinicians, and more community-based resources than ever. There has been an unprecedented expansion of capacity. The second part of this, though, is that while that additional capacity is required, in reality some parts of the health service are being run more productively for patient outcomes than others. The hospital in the Deputy's own constituency of Waterford is an exemplar of what can be done. While I fully accept more capacity is required, we are in the middle of the biggest expansion of our public health service-----

See this speech in context