David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Our witnesses are very welcome. I thank them for their presentation. My first question is more an observation with a question in it. It relates to waiting lists and the waiting list numbers for neurology. Often the focus is on the global number of 900,000 people on some form of acute hospital waiting list. I understand 630,000 are on an outpatient waiting list with 160,000 people waiting over 18 months. It is useful to go under the bonnet in respect of those figures and look at what impact they have in different specialties. Neurology is one where the wait times have increased dramatically since 2015. There are two things happening. The number of people who are on waiting lists and the number increasing is one thing, but the length of time people are waiting is the critical issue. If more people are waiting more than 18 months, and there is a threefold or fourfold increase in the numbers waiting over 18 months, that is critical and shows that there is a problem.

Separate from the acute waiting lists is the number of people waiting for a diagnosis or access to diagnostics. Is that a problem in neurology? There are 230,000 people on a waiting list for a diagnosis. Is that something the witnesses have encountered in neurology and is it an issue that arises in access to community diagnostics?