Mr. Paul Reid:

With respect, I am happy to do my best to answer what questions I can and my colleagues can answer on the Department, profiling and others. I will try to answer them because written replies to all of those will have the team tied up for a long time.

On acceptable work conditions, we are very anxious to improve and strengthen the work conditions. It is obviously a very difficult environment. We are under pressures, particularly in hospitals, at the moment. We have put in a number of supports for staff throughout Covid around the promotion of staff well-being. I have been involved in communications, as has all the management team, about strengthening processes and supports for people in terms of well-being at work, but also basic facilities such as the canteen, etc., that have been and will continue to be strengthened. Obviously, issues around working time is a key issue.

On waiting times and lists, we have a very significant plan. Mr. Watt and I referenced in the opening statement the around €350 million in the access to care fund, €150 million of which is allocated to the national treatment purchase fund, NTPF, but in respect of the remaining €200 million, we have put in place plans on recurring and non-recurring activity costs to help each of the hospital groups around addressing some of that. Importantly, there are about 37 pathways to change how people get their services and move some of them move into the community to stop numbers coming onto the waiting lists in the manner in which they are. It is a very significant plan that has been published and I am happy to share it.

I might just ask my colleague to comment on the mental health service in a moment.

I just want to reassure the Deputy about our board. We report to the board on a monthly basis. We have what is called a scorecard, which goes onwards to the Minister after every board meeting. That is a report on all aspects of our national service plan and performance against each of the targets in the plan. That includes emergency departments and patient waiting times. The performance delivery of our board is reviewed on a monthly basis by a subcommittee and it is reviewed by our full board. There are very clear linkages between what happens on the ground and us providing assurances to our board, including on patient waiting times.

I will touch on the last couple questions. GP recruitment is a difficult issue. We are working with the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, to strengthen the number of trainees coming through and the number of GP trainee posts over a three, four or five-year period. I think this year we have about an extra 41 posts going through for GPs, which is a start.

I will take a final question on what happens when things go wrong. We have a serious incident management process within the health service. We have various processes, including NIR process as well, that looks at where harm is caused or something went wrong and sets out recommendations. As I said earlier, we have certain ways of progressing both learning from it and addressing some of the issues that emerged. I just wish to reassure the Deputy. I hope we have saved my team a number of written reports on that for the next few weeks. I know I have been brief in my answers but I am trying.

Perhaps my colleague, Ms O’Connor, will speak on mental health services.