Mr. Damien Quigley:

On waiting lists, unfortunately because we can only allow secure credit for so many people at a time this creates a bottleneck at certain times.

For this reason, the association made the decision late last year to lift some of the self-imposed restrictions and hope that things work out well. Doing that has been a good move and many more people have received treatment. As Mr. Bright said, 14 new members have also been referred for treatment in the past ten days or so. There is demand for the scheme.

Senator Wall is correct that the testimonials from individuals are what sells the scheme. People go back to Limerick, Cork, Kildare, Dublin or elsewhere and tell their colleagues around the barracks, on the Naval Service ship or in the aerodrome about how they have been treated, the class and nature of care and the speed of treatment. Shortly afterwards, a large number of people from the area in question will suddenly join the scheme and seek treatment. We try to process as many people as possible but if we had certainty, we could potentially grow the scheme much quicker. If we had full-time staff, we could process people through the system faster.

PDFORRA stood fully behind the medical assistance scheme and has even offered more money to support, invest in and grow it further. However, it is aware of the uncertainty with Brexit and all that went with it. The first thing the association did was provide a loan of €150,000. There are further funds available if PMAS needs them. For a representative association to do that has been excellent.

In the past couple of weeks, I have received emails from medical officers overseas, whether it be Syria or Lebanon, who have forwarded referral letters. The word is getting out. The medical officers see it now as part and parcel of the service and the treatment they can get and they recognise the benefit of it.

Regarding setting up the scheme, I must give great praise to Ms Donohoe, who was absolutely fantastic. She told us what the HSE expected, set down the guidelines and informed us of the paperwork and so forth. She is an absolutely fantastic advocate for patient care. We then met Mr. Regan and his team in Kingsbridge Private Hospital. We brought the director of the medical corps at the time to meet them and he was more than satisfied that the hospital in Belfast provided the right level of care for our members. There was, therefore, buy-in from the start, which was very important.

Many thanks go to Kingsbridge Private Hospital. In the personal testimonials, we had a number of cases of people with potential cancers. As a result of Covid-19, especially last year, PMAS called in many favours from the hospital and said that these people had to get treated immediately. It is very worrying to go for a scan and be told one potentially has cancer but it is even more so when one is told the next appointment will be in five or six months' time. We have been able to use our scheme to have the issues of individuals in question addressed. As Mr. Bright outlined, one of the cases had a very successful outcome as a consequence of that. Personal testimony is what matters.