James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Not in the immediate short term but the Deputy is quite correct. In the longer term this is what will pertain. Insurers and the health care commissioning agency will negotiate with providers to get the best deal they can. There are reports of certain hospitals which have additional capacity that could be used. We must be careful how it is used because we have had incidents in the past were hospitals have been very productive, which is great to see and the money follows the patient, but they have been active in a way we did not request. In other words, we have set targets that nobody should wait longer than eight months for an inpatient treatment, but we find some hospitals focus on those waiting three to five months instead of those waiting for longer than eight months, burning up their budget on the money follows the patient side and coming back with their hands out stating they cannot make their list because they got it wrong. We will not tolerate this. People will be given very clear instructions on how to approach the waiting list. Once the urgent cases and cancer cases are looked after the longest waiter should be seen first. Nobody will disagree with this. Failure to adhere to this cannot be rewarded. At the same time we do not want to dampen down what has clearly proven to be a very good incentive for hospitals to become much more productive.