Ms Anne O'Connor:

In terms of where we are going, as Mr. Reid stated, we are looking at reducing those lists. We hope that the total will not rise to 1 million but the reality is that we are actually dealing with cases and most sites are now managing what is coming at them. They are not yet able to make a dent in the backlog but some sites are starting to get there. As I stated, we are seeing an improvement on some sites now but clearly it is a big mountain to climb. The waiting lists only tell one part of the story. The reality is that we do a huge amount of scheduled care work every day on all of our hospital sites and some of our hospitals only do that. There is very significant investment going into scheduled care. When one looks at the level of activity that goes on, that is where the money is going, and it is significant. The waiting list does not tell the story about the activity that is happening. Our performance reports tell that story in terms of the number of people who are being seen every day around the country.