Mr. Dean Sullivan:

To pick up briefly on a question Deputy Donnelly asked and Ms Magahy's response, waiting times are unacceptable. I am not sure I would describe access as having collapsed. The lists were unacceptable a year ago, and they are still unacceptable now. It is a key priority for the HSE, the Department and the Minister to tackle those waiting times, not just for themselves but because of what they mean for individuals waiting for care and the concern and waste the issue causes in the system in terms of patients cycling through it, going back to their GPs, tipping up to emergency departments and so on. Tackling this is an absolute priority of the organisation I am in and Ms Magahy. We need to recognise, though, that the work to which Ms Magahy alluded, the PA Consulting capacity planning work commissioned by the Department just over a year ago, has flagged up material capacity shortfalls in the system. Efforts are being made to address those. That is the reality. That work also recognises, as Ms Magahy said, that there are opportunities to use more effectively the capacity we have.

I will make a final point, which is again consistent with the Government's commitment around all this. Ms Magahy referred to the €12 million care redesign fund. That will be targeted at, among other things, the access issue and delivery of care in a different way and in different settings of lower complexity. There is also an uplift in funding for the NTPF this year within the letter of determination from €75 million to €100 million. That funding will be very helpful in trying to tackle precisely the problem Deputy Donnelly talked about. I am confident we will begin to see a change during 2020. I think there are opportunities, especially on the scheduled care side of the house, where a lot of the waits to which the Deputy alluded are, to begin to make progress on that and to start to build confidence in all our stakeholders. I think the unscheduled care will be more challenging. The reality is that there is a demographic pressure there. Admissions to hospital will continue to rise every year. Capacity is tight. We will make progress there but I do not think we will be as quick as with the progress on the scheduled care side of the house. I hope, if we are back here in six to nine months, that we will begin to see that tanker starting to turn, but we can revisit the issue then.