Does the Taoiseach not agree it is strange that the largest party in the House is obsessed with whether to introduce a full or partial ban on smoking in public houses when the Irish Nurses Organisation has appealed to the Health and Safety Authority to carry out an immediate investigation of the risks to patients and staff in overcrowded accident and emergency departments in hospitals? More and more patients are being treated on trolleys in corridors. Yesterday, in James Connolly Memorial Hospital 35 patients were on trolleys in corridors. During the summer, trolleys had to be removed from ambulances to provide trolley accommodation for patients in hospital wards. Health boards are facing continuing financial restraints. In the North-Eastern Health Board area this year, to the detriment of older people and people with disabilities, a total of 84,000 home help hours were cut from the 2002 figure. There is clearly no chance of Fianna Fáil fulfilling its commitment to the electorate before May 2002 to clear waiting lists.

Why have only half the promised new beds in hospitals been delivered? Why have there been bed closures in public wards, where cuts have continued to apply despite the Government's alleged commitment? Private wards and beds have been virtually immune to this attack. The Taoiseach must recognise that there is great injustice within the health system. I ask him to respond thoughtfully to my question. I do not wish to hear the litany of Government spending on the health services in recent years because there is no correlation between those statistics and the reality for ordinary people depending on the health service.

I disagree with Deputy Ó Caoláin. There are 96,000 people working in the health service, an increase of 30% in the past few years. There are now almost 500 additional consultants, 8,200 extra nurses, 650 extra training places for nurses and an enormous increase in the number of occupational and speech therapists.

There are no extra beds.

There is an increased number of beds—

How many beds?

Just listen.

—even if it is not the entire number due. In this year alone, €0.5 billion is being spent on capital development. The attitude seems to be that all this is wasted and that nothing is done every day. The statistics prove otherwise. They clearly show that in every hospital more people are being treated, there are more in-patients and out-patients and more care and attention is being given both within and outside hospitals and through community care, home helps and so forth. These are the facts.

What about the lift in Temple Street?

There are, of course, problems in the health service. Difficulties arise on occasion in hospitals. Deputy Ó Caoláin is correct that some of the Dublin hospitals, particularly Beaumont Hospital, have experienced difficulties with their accident and emergency departments. One of the main reasons for the current pressure, as stated by the hospital, is the delayed discharge from acute hospitals of patients who have completed their acute phase of treatment. They are not discharged from hospitals. The health service has a name for them but I do not particularly like it so I will not use it here.

The Minister for Health and Children recently allocated €3.8 million to the ERHA for a bed capacity initiative to facilitate the discharge of patients from the acute system. The high number of long-stay patients in acute general hospitals is creating a problem. The Minister has had a number of meetings with the management of those hospitals, even in the past week or two, to try to overcome these difficulties. The ERHA has said it is monitoring the situation. It is actively engaged with hospital management and is working closely with the consultants and nursing staff to try to address that problem. We should not seek to denigrate our health service every hour of every day. The staff are doing an excellent job and are treating enormous numbers of people, thankfully in better facilities than they had previously.