Ms Eilísh Hardiman:

Part of the proposals is to look at what can be done at weekends. Our challenge is that it is not sustainable. We will do anything that is short term but something for two and a half years needs to be sustainable because staff will not continue working overtime. In addition, we have to understand that some of these patients are highly complex and would be best done during the week when we have all of the other supports that are actually there. We have absolutely no problem moving but when we go to weekend working, we tend to do that with some of the less complex procedures to reduce the waiting times. We are happy to take that as part of these proposals and it will involve people working overtime on additional payments, and such matters, to actually do that. These are things we can do.