Mr. Robert Watt:

I will certainly communicate the Deputy's comments about staff in the Department back to them and I know Mr. Reid will do likewise with the Deputy's comments about HSE staff. The recognition people receive for what has been an enormous effort over the past two years is very much appreciated and I will relay the Deputy's comments back to them.

I agree with him about the need for us to galvanise much of the spirit, intent and ways of working shown during Covid for the more structural long-term challenges in the system about enhancing capacity, improving clinical outcomes and addressing waiting lists. This is what Mr. Reid and I, along with our teams, are focused on and thankfully, able to focus on mostly full time as Covid is less of a challenge for the health system and society. It is not totally defeated. I know we are not going to talk about it but there are still a lot of people - almost 600 - in hospital with Covid and it is still out there in the community. Thankfully, we are not suffering the more acute phases we have gone through over the past two years.

I agree with the Deputy's comment about waiting lists. My colleagues and I compare changes year on year and if we have an improvement in waiting lists this year, which I hope we do, it is no consolation to somebody who is still waiting too long or is uncertain about when he or she will receive treatment. We hope the Government will decide on the waiting list plan next week. That will set out a variety of actions to buy more private sector capacity, drive more public sector output, change the way we work and so on to increase the overall level of activity. We hope to have the highest level of waiting list-related activity delivered by the HSE, the NTPF and the public and private system this year. Even with that, there will still be a large number of people waiting at the end of the year, some of whom will have been waiting for too long. That represents a challenge. After this year, the challenge for us will be to do even better in 2023 and make further improvements that will involve more resourcing and capacity and different ways of working.

Those different ways of working, which Mr. Reid set out in his presentation, are absolutely critical. One can see some of the enormous benefits and improvements from some of the changes in the deferrals and in people not having to go to hospital and to hospital appointments and so on. I fully agree with the Deputy and that is what we are fully focused on.