In the programme for Government promises were made to develop the health service into a state-of-the-art service. Part of this was to increase the capacity and number of ICU beds. Obviously, when preparing the programme for Government, none of us were aware of the devastating effects that the Covid pandemic would bring upon us.

Will the Taoiseach confirm how many operational and permanent ICU beds were available at the end of 2019, just before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic? How many operational and permanent ICU beds are currently available to the health service? Will the Taoiseach confirm that the current number of available beds in ICUs is permanent and will remain in place once we get over the worst of the pandemic?

I am concerned that the Government has spent vast sums of money fighting the effects of the Covid pandemic. An additional €4.4 billion was spent on the health service to fight the pandemic. We need assurances that this additional investment in the health services will reap benefits for the long term.

Without question, Covid-19 has had an extraordinary impact on the country, no less so than on the health services. We have to learn lessons from the Covid-19 experience in respect of our health services. I believe we are learning lessons. It has resulted in unprecedented spending on our health services which has resulted in an increase in ICU beds as well as overall bed capacity.

The important thing now is that we embed that into the system for the long term. That will involve a broad-based revenue approach to ensure we have resources to support an enlarged and expanded health service into the future. The Government's objective is to enable us to provide for and continue to increase expenditure in health services.

One area developed is the community diagnostic framework.

Time is up.

The primary care relationship with the HSE has been transformed. There are many positives which come from this as we move out of Covid-19.