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

A commitment would be premature given that the hospital's board has yet to approve it. The board must do a feasibility study, cost it and approve it before the Government can make such a commitment. A new emergency department alone will not solve overcrowding. Among the emergency departments throughout the country, new and old, some of the new ones are overcrowded. However, a new emergency department might provide a better service and patient experience, and it may be worth doing on this basis, separate from the overcrowding issue.There is a ward currently closed in Beaumont Hospital. This is creating difficulties at the moment. I think it is St. Damien's kidney ward. It has partially reopened this week and will fully reopen by the end of the month. I hope this will ease the situation. Over many years, the authorities at Beaumont Hospital have consistently explained the hospital's problems by reference to the number of delayed discharges. For example, 90 beds were not available to acute patients because people could not get home care packages or nursing home spaces. There has been a considerable reduction, from 80 or 90 to 50 or 60, in the number of delayed discharges at Beaumont Hospital. That should have made a difference but it has not. In fairness to the hospital, it has acknowledged that and, as a result, is looking at its own practices. It is examining specialty wards and considering changes in the way things and people work to improve patient flow in the hospital. Such measures have been demonstrated to have real effects in other hospitals.