Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is actively happening and consideration will be given to future capacity, including the two 96-bed blocks. I was talking to the HSE about that earlier today.

I have more information I can come back to on another day, but I will wrap up. The core message is that we will continue to invest in UHL and in the hospital group. We will continue to invest in the workforce and in beds. We are putting a surgical hub and much more capacity in place. The other part of this is that we need changes to working practices, to patient flow through the hospitals and to integrated care pathways between the hospital and the community. Many of those changes are also required. We need both. We have seen the team in UHL respond in recent weeks and drive down the number of patients on trolleys. There were eight patients on trolleys in UHL this morning. In the past week the average has been about six. The team has responded well and we need to acknowledge that.

I will finish there. I thank colleagues and will now have to leave to vote in the Dáil.