We are almost out of time. Only two speakers remain. With the co-operation of the House, I am going to take those last two speakers. I call Deputy Michael Healy Rae.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and I will be brief. Regarding the Passport Office website, it states that first-time applications will take 35 working days to process, which is seven weeks. I have continuously found, however, that passports can take much longer than this to process. Nothing is wrong with those applications and no further information is requested. The staff working on the urgent TD line are absolutely brilliant. I compliment them and thank them for their work.

In case you fall out with them.

They actually do not have access to expedite the passport unless it has gone past the estimated date. In recent days I had a lady who needed her passport for a work trip but was told they could not do anything to help her. It was a paper form standard renewal, not a first-time application. The Department needs to highlight that first-time passport applications are taking 35 days and a lot longer. Will the Taoiseach please try to do something with the Passport Office and resource it more? They are very excellent people; this is not critical of them.

The Taoiseach is aware of the great pressures on University Hospital Limerick in Limerick. There are 111 patients on trolleys this morning and there were 113 yesterday. I urge him to expedite a proactive measure. The Taoiseach is aware that a block for 96 acute beds is in the capital plan for University Hospital Limerick. UHL estates has gone to tender at this time. It is with HSE corporate, seeking approval to allow it to appoint a contractor to commence the building. It is an 18-month build. I ask the Government to support this approval by the HSE being expedited. We need to have shovels on the ground and we need to have that hospital in place. If they commence building on it straight away, we can have that block up and running by the end of 2023.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae is correct about the extraordinary work that is now going on within the Passport Office. Passport service staff numbers have increased by more than 300 since June 2021. There is a competition under way at the moment which, when completed, will see staffing numbers of 900. That is a doubling of staff numbers since last summer. It is engaging in intensive training and so on. In excess of 400,000 passports have been issued since 1 January. That is compared with a total of 634,000 passports issued in the entire 12 months of 2021. It is experiencing a very high volume of applications. Last week the passport service reduced the processing time for first-time applications from 35 working days to 30 working days. That follows an initial reduction from 40 working days. Progress is being made but I will take what the Deputy said back to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. We are very concerned about it and conscious of it.

In response to Deputy O'Donnell, the Minister for Health is engaging with the HSE in respect of the challenges at University Hospital Limerick. We will do everything we can to progress the capital works at the hospital and in health generally.