A report in today's Irish Independent states that the number of children on hospital waiting lists is increasing and that the number of children who have been waiting for six months or more for procedures has gone up from 1,709 last December to 1,830. Everyone is agreed that there is a shortage of public hospital beds. There is disagreement as to how they are to be provided and some disagreement as to the number required. However, there is general agreement that there is a shortage.

In July 2005, the Minister for Health and Children issued an instruction to the HSE to enter into co-location arrangements for the provision of beds. Sites on the grounds of public hospitals would be made available to property developers, tax incentives would be provided for the construction of private hospitals and those private hospitals would provide 1,000 beds, thereby releasing an equivalent number in the public system. There were, originally, to be ten co-located hospitals. In the programme for Government negotiated in 2008 we were told that the Government would implement the plan for co-located facilities because it represented the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that public capacity was increased and ring-fenced. In May 2008, when I questioned the Taoiseach about this, he wrote to me and stated that approved bidder status had been approved for six of the hospitals and it was expected that project agreements would be signed shortly for three others. In other words, there were to be nine hospitals.

In the programme for Government re-negotiated recently between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party this has been scaled back. The new programme states that the Government will proceed with the current programme of co-location limited to already committed projects under existing project contractual agreements. We know from replies to parliamentary questions that contractual agreements have been signed for four hospitals. The revised programme for Government has scaled back the number of co-located hospitals from nine to four.

First, if the number of co-located hospitals has been reduced from nine to four, how many hospital beds will be provided? The original idea was that 1,000 would be provided. Second, when will construction work begin on the four hospitals? Third, when will we see the first of the beds promised by the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, in July 2005, when she said the purpose of co-location was to fast-track the provision of hospital beds?

I do not have information specifically relating to this question, of which I did not have notice. I can contact the Deputy in due course and clarify many of the issues he raises. I do not accept that it is the universal view that there are insufficient beds in the system. What is needed is the utilisation of those beds to best effect. We have seen a big increase in the number of day cases and the length of stay of people requiring surgery has been shortening. Utilisation of existing bed places and greater efficiency and effectiveness has seen an increase in workload in our hospital system.

A report by the ESRI, published today, projects a significant increase in the demand for health care in Ireland, based upon demographic factors. It points out that shifting appropriate treatments from an in-patient to a day-case basis and moving activity which is more appropriate to primary care out of acute hospitals are some of the reforms currently taking place and which must be advanced.

I can obtain specific information for the Deputy in the next few hours. With regard to the general issue of co-location, the whole purpose was to facilitate bringing beds which had been designated as private into the public system by co-locating a private bed complement on co-located sites.

The traditional means of public procurement is also slow. There have been complications with regard to the co-location initiative coming on stream because of the problem in the banking system. There is also the question of ensuring that we proceed with those for which planning permission has been granted and on the basis of finance being provided.

I appreciate that the Taoiseach did not have advance notice of my question, but this subject should be familiar to him. One of the central issues in the last general election was that of hospital beds. There was a debate about the number of beds required. The country was full of posters giving the respective figures. There was also a debate about how they were to be provided.

The solution in the programme for Government was to increase the number of dedicated public hospital beds by 1,500 and to provide 1,000 of those through the co-located hospital scheme. The original number of planned co-located hospitals was nine. This dropped to four in the recently revised programme for Government. How many hospital beds does the Government now intend to provide? Until now it has been accepted as 1,000 and there was a formula for that figure. Four co-located hospitals cannot provide 1,000 beds, which were to have been provided by nine.

Second, what is happening to the co-location arrangement? When will the four hospitals be built and when will we see a bed produced? The HSE was reluctant to go down this road but the Minister for Health and Children instructed the HSE that this was the Government's route. She justified her instruction by saying it would fast-track the provision of hospital beds. That was more than four years ago. We still have not provided a bed and there is no sign of these hospitals being built. Now, under the revised programme for Government, the number of such hospitals is being reduced from nine to four.

Regarding the changes currently under way, more than 20,000 additional day-case treatments have been delivered by our health services so far this year, compared to the same period last year.

I ask the Taoiseach to stick to the question of beds.

Deputy Gilmore should read this morning's ESRI report.

If it is about increased activity to deal with waiting lists, which was the premise of Deputy Gilmore's question, the idea that they can only be dealt with by the provision of additional beds flies in the face of the facts.

It was the Government parties who said that was the solution.

The reforms which have been implemented have seen a more efficient and effective utilisation of beds in the system currently.

So the Taoiseach was wrong when he said we needed more beds.

Those co-located hospitals for which there is project agreement, subject to planning permission and the availability of finance, will proceed. The question of existing bed complements is not a static situation. Efficiencies have been and are being achieved by an increase in the number of day-cases and shorter stays by patients in surgical units.

This has come out of the blue.

It is a cock and bull story.

That is the issue. The detail on the up to date position can be provided by way of letter.