The population has increased by 1.5 million in the past 20 years, or 40%, and there is a need to fast-track the delivery of medical facilities. An increase of 1.5 million people is huge. In Cork, for instance, we have planning for a new paediatric unit and there is also the issue regarding the delivery of elective hospitals. We need now to respond. As the Tánaiste said earlier, there has been an increase in the population of 97,000 in the past 12 months alone, and our health service has to respond accordingly. It is about how we can fast-track the delivery of healthcare facilities, outside of the delivery of services. We need to be able to fast-track the delivery of actual infrastructure, rather than take five or eight years to deliver it.

The Minister for Health to respond.

I might take that question because there is a broader issue relating to population growth and its impact on public services, and the Deputy raised a very interesting point. He mentioned an increase in the population of 1.5 million over 20 years. I have been making this point repeatedly and I think we need a deeper dive and analysis of the relationship between population growth and the impact on public services more generally, including the health service. Some of the increased costs in health are due to health inflation, which is generally higher than non-health inflation, and there are also increased activity levels, ageing of the population and growth in population. That is why we have big deficits in health. There needs to proper governance and management of health service budgets, but the population increase is a factor that probably has not, in my view, been analysed or assessed with the level of detail required to make sure we can plan better for the future. I agree on the need to fast-track elective hospitals, particularly the one in Cork, for which I have been arguing intensely with the Minister-----

I thank the Tánaiste.

We have planning for the new paediatric unit.

-----and the paediatric unit as well.