Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As much work as possible should be done within the public health system. We should not have the waiting lists that currently exist. The question is what do we do about the far too many men, women and children who are still waiting while we build the permanent capacity of the public system to be able to meet demand,. The answer is that it is a combination of things.

As the Deputy stated, the treatment abroad scheme is used. If we had the level of capacity we ought to have here, the scheme really should not be needed. I will give an example. Funding is being provided for an ophthalmology unit in County Cork, which will be able to deal with many people with cataracts who are currently travelling to private hospitals in Northern Ireland for cataract operations. To me, success is people no longer needing to travel but, rather, being treated in the unit in County Cork or another HSE hospital.

In the short term, to make progress on waiting lists we need to use a combination of things. We need to use the treatment abroad scheme. We need to provide additional funding to the HSE, both in terms of permanent capacity, such as the ophthalmology unit, but also in terms of additional short-term capacity, such as running operating theatres out of normal hours, payment by procedure within HSE hospitals and using the private system to treat as many people as possible as quickly as possible. The total funding being allocated this year is substantial. We have an access to care fund of €210 million. There is an additional amount of €30 million to the NTPF, bringing the total amount for the fund up to €130 million. There is €33 million for alternative care pathways, which is part of the Sláintecare work but essentially will help to tackle waiting lists. There is the acute hospital service restart fund of €35 million and cancer screening of €10 million. In total, that comes to approximately €418 million. It is the intention to bring the waiting lists down as quickly as we can and using every available mechanism.