Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy, and indeed many Deputies who have raised this issue with me. The HIQA report was published by HIQA just this lunchtime. It is a comprehensive report, 1,200 pages, looking back into the demographic issues in the area. It gives three options. The first two are loaded in terms of giving acute beds in the hospital. The third option, C, is the longer-term option of a model 3 hospital. HIQA itself prioritises options A and B as meeting the needs of the people in the most immediate term and says that option C, the model 3 hospital, would take a very long time, cost a lot and not meet the needs in the interim period. In the first instance, therefore, I am pleased to say that 96 beds will open this week into next week and we will be there to formally open them in October. We hope that planning permission will come through for the other 96 beds very shortly. Our first priority and, as HIQA analysed, the most important thing is the inpatient acute bed deficit in Limerick hospital. That has to be our first priority.

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