Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

-----but he intends to work with everybody on this. What the Deputy said and the tone in which he said it are really important. There are some things that are just more important that party politics and shouting and roaring at each other in here. Healthcare and making sure the people of the mid-west have a proper, fit for purpose health service is our priority, the priority of the Minister for Health and the priority of everybody I know across this House. Let us proceed on that basis. Deputy O'Donoghue and other mid-west TDs have been very vocal advocates for the improvement of services at UHL for a sustained period and there is a need for a comprehensive approach to the provision of services in the short and long term, because people cannot wait forever and a day. They need stuff now and then they need to know where this is going in the time ahead. We are fully committed to improving services in the mid-west region.

I welcome the Deputy's comments about the new 96-bed block at UHL. I hope that is seen as a sign of the Government's commitment. The Deputy was at the opening and I want to acknowledge that. I am glad to say that while nobody wants to see anybody on a trolley, we are beginning to see the benefit of that extra capacity. I too know the new management team the Deputy mentioned to be good people, based on my past postings. I am glad to report the average number of people waiting on trolleys at UHL has halved in the three weeks since the new 96-bed block opened compared with the three weeks prior to that. It is still too high, but it shows the benefit. If you put in extra beds and put in the right management you can begin to see improvements. Importantly, there are now enabling works under way for a second 96-bed block. A further 84 inpatient beds are planned at UHL through the acute hospital inpatient bed capacity expansion plan. These projects include 32 rapid build beds. With the first 96-bed block, when you add that up we will increase bed capacity through this variety of initiatives by 308 beds by 2028, with 572 new beds across the region by 2031.

Let us get back to the HIQA review. We have a roadmap. The HIQA review gave us three options, but the Deputy is kind of right; it did not necessarily gave us three options. Did it give us a menu to work through? The Minister briefed the Government on 30 September. Option A of the review was "Expand Capacity at UHL on the Dooradoyle site". Let us all agree we have started that, we need to do more of that and the quicker the better. On the point about infrastructure delivery and cutting through red tape, we are going to have proposals from the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and his Department very shortly, probably this month, on how we speed up infrastructure delivery. The second option was to "Extend the UHL hospital campus to comprise the existing Dooradoyle site and another site...". The third option talked about the potential to develop a model 3 hospital in the HSE mid-west. Alongside these options, HIQA has also presented an extensive number of additional considerations, including system-wide work - reforms, I suppose - that need to be progressed in parallel. I am clear that all options remain on the table. The Government has not ruled out doing any or all of these. That has not happened. The extensive findings and considerations presented by HIQA are being considered fully by the Minister and her officials and in terms of this not dragging on, the Minister has committed to reporting back to Government on next steps by Christmas.

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