Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will have to come back to the committee on the questions of orthodontics, oral surgery and oronasal surgery. I just do not have enough detail on those matters to hand. In orthodontics, it is intended to do some outsourcing to the private sector towards the end of the year to try to reduce the waiting lists, particularly for surgery. Some of that is done in the Beacon Hospital already. There will be more towards the end of the year. That is already in the service plan.

I often hear of patients who go to the North on their own bat and then claim it back on the cross-Border directive. We are probably going to see a lot more of that in the years to come. Many more people will take advantage of the cross-Border directive to avail of treatments in another country, which then get billed back to their home country. I think that is probably a good thing. If significant numbers of people are going overseas to buy treatment they should be getting here, it might be easier for the Minister for Health to get the money in the first place. If people are going off to get treated in England or the North instead, it might be a game-changer in the medium term.

Deputy O'Reilly will be aware that the bilateral cochlear implant programme started quite recently under Dr. Laura Viani in Beaumont Hospital and Temple Street Children's University Hospital. The real success of that programme will be shown quite soon in an RTE documentary. It is powering away through the waiting list. I am not sure whether it is yet in a position to take patients from North of the Border. I do now know where they are done in the North. It is certainly worthy of consideration.

There is a certain amount of staff mobility already. Cardiothoracic surgeons come to Dublin from Belfast to operate on children. Deputy Smith will be aware that when we were short on transplant surgeons in Beaumont Hospital for a while, we got a dig-out from the surgeons from Belfast who came down and did some transplants here. There is some mobility. There was a coaching and mentoring element to one of the INTERREG programmes, which was a workforce mobility programme, to facilitate the development of leadership skills and the sharing of knowledge across the Border. There was also a social worker leadership aspect to enhance the leadership skills of social work team leaders. The project is also delivering on the moving and handling training passport on a cross-Border basis so that people can have one that applies across the Border.

Under EU directives, it is generally not all that hard for someone who qualified in the EU to get recognised in another country. One does have to pay the relevant fee, however. It occurs to me that if somebody is registered already in the Republic of Ireland, we should waive the fee for them to be registered in the North, or vice versa. It is just a thought and I am not promising anything. We might find we cannot do that without extending it to everyone in the European Economic Area, on the basis that we cannot treat any European citizen any more favourably than another. Maybe it is an idea.

I was invited by Jim Wells to visit the new hospital in Enniskillen. I am told it is very impressive. It is one of the most modern hospitals in Ireland or Britain at this stage. It is also very big, for whatever reason. I am not sure whether the relevant authorities were thinking ahead to cross-Border reconfiguring. I do not know whether they are planning to treat people from Sligo, Cavan or Monaghan in Enniskillen. I intend to take a look at the hospital in the next couple of months.

The HSE does have a tender out at the moment to outsource many of those who have been waiting more than a year for inpatient procedures, outpatient procedures and outpatient appointments. I do not know whether any tenders came in from any of the trusts North of the Border. I would be surprised if they did not.