Ms Eilísh Hardiman:

There are infrastructure issues that cause rate-limiting factors. There is also the reality that hospitals are responding currently to many emergencies and the winter surge around respiratory illnesses. Every week we produce the numbers on the waiting list and share it with advocacy groups. We are willing to sit down and look at our plans, as outlined, as well as the timing. We have no problem communicating those and we share them in updates. We already publish, tweet and make the information publicly available as to how many are on the waiting list and being treated. We want to be open and transparent about these numbers and communicate as much as possible around this. We have had meetings with advocacy groups to see how we can improve on communication and we know we can do more on that. We are happy to engage with those groups and the committee to get any feedback needed to demonstrate the progress we can make in treating and reducing the numbers and length of time that people must wait.