Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)

Work is ongoing with that. As the Deputy knows, the backlog of assessments of need is growing. It has increased from a low of just under 2,000 in 2021, when the preliminary team assessments were used, to almost 15,300 at the end of March of this year. The HSE has estimated the backlog could reach almost 24,800 applications by the end of this year.