Professor David Keegan:

I could not agree more with the Deputy that that should not happen. It is the driving force behind this initiative. That is why we have pulled together 200 stakeholders in the region to address it. I do not want answer with glib words. In this day and age, nobody should wait five years for an appointment to see a specialist. That is why our target is that in the first year nobody in the region will be waiting more than 12 months. We can only control what is in our realm at the moment. A weight of 12 months is not good enough. We welcome the Sláintecare goal of reducing that to less than three months in three years' time. Our target is on demand service delivery and we want to be judged at that level.

While the vision impairment of blindness in cataracts is reversible with surgery, we cannot escape the fact that an individual has to live unnecessarily in a first world country with a vision impairment or blindness as a result of that. Our purpose is to reduce the burden of vision impairment and blindness. With respect to cataracts, the sooner somebody sees a specialist and gets cataract surgery, the sooner we will have achieved the goal we have laid down for ourselves.

I do not know whether the Deputy got a chance to read the presentation. Timely access to care, a reduction in waiting lists, treating the right patient in the right place at the right time, transformation and education are all supports to ensure that we reduce the burden of vision impairment blindness such as in the case of the woman who came to speak to the Deputy. It is shocking, but that is what drives this group.