Dr. Duncan Rogers:

To give the Chairman context, in the service at the Mater hospital, glaucoma is a single disease with which a person will have no symptoms until he or she is at the very end stages of it when he or she will suddenly be unable to see. At that point, there is no treatment. That is the second-largest group of patients we see in the Mater. It is not a small number; it is a huge number of patients.

Both glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, as the name suggests, are linked with increasing age. As the Chairman will be well aware, within Ireland, we have a disproportionately large population that is moving from the over-65s. Over the last 20 years and in the next ten years, it is going to increase by 35%. Glaucoma is our second biggest group, and it is going to increase by 30%. It has already increased by 15%, but it will increase by 15% again in the next ten years. It is a huge number of patients. It is not a minority. It is a large number. Those waiting lists and the programme we are delivering here, or trying to in the north-east region, will save vision in a very meaningful way for a huge number of patients.