Mr. Mark Byrne:

This again goes back to the procurement framework we are campaigning for and chasing the Department of Health to roll out. It would probably argue there are capacity issues in the system, but we are not so sure about this. Certainly, however, if the public-private partnership model were to be used, where some of the capacity in the private sector could be availed of, this would, in turn, free up some of the paediatric audiologists in the HSE, many of whom also see adults. I refer to focusing on the targeted work for the children.

One of the points we were making earlier was that we are caught in the mud on this issue without the political will and we will continue to be in this situation if a bit of leadership and direction is not shown in respect of really managing waiting lists. I suppose this is the case across the board in many areas, but without this proactive leadership to manage the waiting lists, we will be talking about this problem this time next year, the year after that and so on. We have a little bit of momentum now with the talk of a working group being set up. The first urgent job must be to get this procurement framework up and running. It is very similar to the UK model that Mr. Lennon spoke about earlier, where people can go to their local private audiologist. This might involve a voucher system where there would be reimbursement from the HSE. It would, though, have to be in line with proper standards and protocols to ensure people are getting the right hearing aids. If we were to adopt this public-private partnership model, there is no reason, certainly in the short term, these waiting lists cannot be targeted and brought in a positive direction very quickly.