Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Those questions will all be taken. I will deal personally with the issue of scoliosis and outpatients departments and the parliamentary question issue. I give notice to Mr. Healy that I will be asking him to come in on the operation of the nursing home support scheme and to Ms O'Connor that I will be asking her to speak on the decrease in teenage suicide. Ms Mannion and Mr. Woods will be asked to comment on the issue of contracts of indefinite duration, CIDs, and consultants.

With regard to scoliosis, the final sentence I used was that the HSE is working to develop a long-term sustainable solution for scoliosis in paediatric orthopaedic patients. I also include issues of diagnosis in that regard. Through the children's hospital group, we are carrying out a thorough assessment of access to diagnosis and the likely conversion rate to treatment from outpatient referrals in order to ensure that we achieve what we have committed to, which is to bring the waiting time for treatment down to no more than four months for all those who are listed for treatment by the end of this year, including those who will be added to that list as the year progresses.

We also aim to ensure in the two subsequent years that we have sufficient capacity to deal with all those who will need treatment in a much more timely manner, inclusive of the time from outpatient referral to diagnosis including where MRI or any other diagnostic procedure may be required. For a period of time, we will need a treatment capacity more than double that which we have had historically. It is our general approach to waiting to always deal with those waiting longest first. That is why we are using the approach we are now using in respect of those who are on the existing treatment waiting list. We are using insourcing, outsourcing and international treatment to ensure that waiting list is effectively eliminated - four months would not be considered a waiting list - and will then bring forward the balance of the issue.

In respect of representations and parliamentary questions, a total of 3,570 parliamentary questions were asked in the period between 1 January 2017 and 24 May 2017, of which 2,566, some 72%, received an on-time reply, that is to say, within ten working days. That means that 28% are non-compliant. It is difficult to give comparators with prior years because following the last general election, approximately this time last year, new Standing Orders were adopted which reduced the target reply date from 15 days to ten days. This is monitored very closely. Mr Ray Mitchell, who is normally with us, is the official who normally deals with that monitoring. He is on a well-earned break this week. I am quite happy to share our monitoring reports with this committee or with anyone else. We check and very actively chase those who have not yet replied to questions. Something that sometimes causes issues, and the Deputy will understand what I mean by this reference, is that we can sometimes get 50 questions which are effectively on the one issue and it is required that they be dealt with separately. Our parliamentary unit is very happy to work with any Member who is experiencing difficulty in getting replies to questions. We will share that report and we are working to ensure that the importance of replying within ten days is understood throughout our system.