Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thought we were going to go through the subheads as well but we are obviously not doing that. That is fine. I am not questioning it but I thought that was the way it would be done. We will not inflict that suffering. I will make some general comments then rather than going through each subhead.

The Minister referred to a couple of issues. I do not wish to have a full-scale debate. We will resume hostilities in the new year. I met some scoliosis advocacy groups yesterday. The target is a four-month wait for children with scoliosis. The difficulty is that the gatekeeper is the outpatient appointment and that is the point where there are huge delays. People are waiting an inordinate period for the initial assessment to allow them to move to the next stage, which is inpatient treatment. That is where the waiting list develops. We welcome the fact that waiting lists are reducing for inpatients but the reason for that is there is a slow flow of children moving from the outpatient list to the inpatient list for elective surgery. Does the Minister understand what I am saying?