Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Forgive me. My thinking was always aligned to the CHOs. When we are looking for information through parliamentary questions in relation to waiting lists, typically we get the CHO-based statistics. It seems to me that there is a geographical disparity. Some teams are up and running and under way. I am thinking of two geographical locations. Why should there be a difference, for instance, between Sligo or Galway? If I am being political about it, why should there be a difference between Galway and Cork, for instance? Surely there should be consistency right across the board. I am trying to understand.

It comes down to the experience of the constituent who approaches a constituency TD about wanting to get into a service, and if they happen to be from a certain part of the country, they are more or less likely to get access to the service, depending on where they are. What I am coming at here is the need for consistency right across the board. If I had some words of comfort that this is where it is going and that is the journey or the direction of travel, to use that awful expression, that would give us some comfort.