Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the funding streams I notice the Minister's budget is vast. I see the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, as being a very positive mechanism. There is space to further elaborate and broaden its scope. At the moment, as I understand it, it is largely around elective surgeries and getting people off long waiting lists and it is doing so very effectively. I know many people who have gone for cataract and varicose vein treatment very successfully and they speak positively of the scheme.

Will the Minister consider - I mentioned this in the Dáil recently - broadening the National Treatment Purchase Fund to include children in the primary and secondary school age cohort, who are in the queue for the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, for critical diagnostic and screening tests? At the moment, they are not allowed to go through the National Treatment Purchase Fund. Many of them are waiting for two or three years. I was a teacher and some of the children we would have referred on may not have been seen by the system until they left the primary school system. Therapeutic supports are continuous but diagnostics are very different. Someone might have a diagnosis only once in their life. To delay a diagnosis is all wrong. Surely, we could acquire private capacity in this regard or even send these children beyond the jurisdiction, so that we know they can have a diagnosis and that a care and support plan can be built around them.