Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry to interrupt again. Yes, that is true. However, if we are beset by waiting lists, as we have been for many years now, there has to be some reason for it. Maybe it is a shortage of administrators. Maybe administrators are what we need. I do not know, but I do know that we have to overhaul our waiting lists. Otherwise we may as well close the shop altogether and go home. The fact of the matter is this; if we cannot identify the snags in the system and resolve them, then we are wasting money, because time is money. The costs of running the health service will be reduced very considerably if we can identify and remove those glitches. It goes back to the old system. We may ask, for example, how long one has to wait for the result of an X-ray, a scan or whatever. One should not have to wait at all. If time is money, then we need to know the results as quickly as possible.

I would emphasise this point. Some time ago, the comparison between private sector and public sector hospitals was brought to my attention. It appears that a consultant could work a full day in the private sector uninterrupted. If they change over to the public sector the following week, they might have a day's work, but they might not. That might be because some part of the system is not ready. There may be insufficient staff in the theatre, theatres may be unavailable or whatever the case may be. All of these are serious contributory factors that make the health service less efficient, and that is what we need to address.