Mr. Paul Reid:

The straight answer is “No, not yet”. As part of the access to care fund in the national service plan, significant advance funding has been given to Children's Health Ireland, CHI, to increase theatre capacity in Crumlin and Temple Street and also to get in further resources. There are just over 190 awaiting surgery. It is very complex, as the Chairman will be aware, and it needs multidisciplinary teams for each surgery. We are anxious to tackle that and particularly anxious to get it back to the maximum four-month waiting list. There will be occasions where it will take longer but the investment has been advanced to CHI and it is finalising a plan to start to address some of that this year.