I have visited five hospitals over recent weeks. I have spoken to many managers of hospitals, but also people who work on the front line, including nurses, doctors, consultants and healthcare assistants. Every single hospital is doing its best to deal with very difficult circumstances at the moment with rising infections in the community. Staff are working wonders, but they are burned out and there is a lot of fatigue. Managers are also doing their best. At every single hospital I have visited there are plans for more beds. The hospitals need more beds, surgical theatre capacity and diagnostic capacity. They also do not have the option, in many cases, of sending people home because the home care is not there and we do not have step-down or recovery beds in the community, yet over the past 24 hours the Minister for Health seems to be blaming everybody bar himself. It seems to be the management of the hospitals and the staff who are not doing enough, but the Minister needs to take responsibility for the fact that in far too many circumstances-----

I thank the Deputy; the time is up.

-----the beds are not there and the staff are not.

I thank the Deputy.

When will the 1,500 rapid-build beds this Minister promised be delivered-----

I thank the Deputy, but the time is up.

-----and how many of those will be delivered in 2024?

To explain, the Taoiseach had to leave because he is on his way to a European Council meeting. I hope the House understands that and I am happy to-----

Europe is more important than Ireland, obviously.

-----fill in for him, but for that particular question, I ask the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to give an accurate answer.

I agree with the premise of Deputy Cullinane's question, which is that more capacity has been required. As the Deputy will be aware, we have added more beds, more hospital-based staff, including clinicians and non-clinicians, and more community-based resources than ever. There has been an unprecedented expansion of capacity. The second part of this, though, is that while that additional capacity is required, in reality some parts of the health service are being run more productively for patient outcomes than others. The hospital in the Deputy's own constituency of Waterford is an exemplar of what can be done. While I fully accept more capacity is required, we are in the middle of the biggest expansion of our public health service-----

I thank the Minister.

-----there has ever been. The corollary to that is we must see increases in productivity and consistent-----

Okay. The time is up. I thank the Minister.

-----use of good practice in all our hospitals across the country.