Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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482. To ask the Minister for Health the number of acute hospitals and hospital beds here per capita and overall; his views on the way this compares to international examples; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6153/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The best measure to use for international comparisons would be Eurostat data on curative care beds. This specifically excludes day case beds, beds used for longer term care, for example geriatrics, and it also excludes psychiatric beds. The data Ireland supplies to Eurostat is based on the publicly funded acute hospitals only.

In the most recent data available from 2011, Ireland had 217 curative care beds per 100,000 population. This compared with an average of 365 curative care beds per 100,000 population for the 25 EU Member States that provided data in 2011. It should be noted that data for Ireland and UK (237 per 100,000) excludes beds in private hospitals which affects the comparability somewhat.